Volume 29 (2009)
 RNCSE 29 (1) |
 RNCSE 29 (2) |
 RNCSE 29 (3) |
 RNCSE 29 (4) |
 RNCSE 29 (5) |
 RNCSE 29 (6) |
RNCSE 29 (1)
Click "Print Edition Contents" for list of articles in the print edition.
Print Edition Contents: 29 (1)
NEWS
- Moves and Countermoves in Texas
Glenn Branch
Texas is one of the largest "textbook adoption" states, and its curriculum choices can have profound effects on what is available in texts throughout the nation. The Texas science education standards are being revised — but not without controversy! - Updates
News from California, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Malta, and elsewhere.
NCSE NEWS
- News from the Membership
What our members are doing to support evolution and oppose pseudoscience wherever the need arises.
MEMBERS' PAGES
- Selected Works of Charles Robert Darwin
This much abbreviated list illustrates Darwin's scientific contributions to a wide variety of important questions of his time. - Books: Happy Birthday!
These books celebrate Darwin's work and its lasting impact on modern science. Every purchase supports NCSE. - NCSE On the Road
Check the calendar here for NCSE speakers.
ARTICLES
- Charles Darwin: Botanist
Sara B Hoot
Not only was Darwin's career about more than evolution, his work with plants revealed him to be both a first-rate botanist and a first-rate scientist.
SPECIAL FEATURE
- People & Places: Siccar Point
Randy Moore
Just as Darwin was about more than evolution, there is much more to evolution than Darwin. This is the first in a series of short notes that will examine the history of evolutionary science by visiting significant places and meeting littleknown people who contributed to our current understanding.
FEATURES
- Evolution Learning Community
Encourages Dialog on Evolution at UNC Wilmington
Dana Fischetti
Learning communities provide a variety of opportunities for students and faculty to exchange ideas. The Evolution Learning Community at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, engages the fundamental idea underlying all biology. - Briscoe Geology Park
Len Eisenberg
Can a group of community volunteers turn an old school yard into an interactive exhibit of the history of life? You bet!
BOOK REVIEWS
- More than Darwin: An Encyclopedia of the People and Places of the Evolution–Creationism Controversy
by Randy Moore and Mark D Decker
Reviewed by Glenn Branch - Darwinian Detectives: Revealing the Natural History of Genes and Genomes
by Norman A Johnson
Reviewed by Rebecca L Cann - Negotiating Darwin: The Vatican Confronts Evolution, 1877–1902
by Mariano Artigas, Thomas F Glick, and
Rafael A Martínez
Reviewed by Peter MJ Hess - Darwin and the Bible: The Cultural Confrontation
edited by Richard H Robbins and Mark N Cohen
Reviewed by Andrew J Petto
Briscoe Geology Park
A typical fourth grader can rattle off the names of the planets, but does not know the names of the geological chapters of earth history, how old the earth is, when dinosaurs lived, or much else about the history of earth and the life on it. One common excuse for this gap in science education is that these topics are too complicated; but the real reason is the conflict with traditional beliefs — either those of the teacher or of the parents the teacher does not wish to offend. In Ashland, Oregon, the Briscoe Geology Park was built to help students, residents and visitors better understand how our planet and life have changed dramatically through time and how local geology fits into the picture.
In fall 2006, community volunteers proposed to the Ashland School District the construction of a geology park in an unused corner of a closed elementary school. Permission was granted, and with the help of Ashland Parks and Recreation Department, volunteers built the Briscoe Geology Park. The park is designed to operate on multiple levels of ability, such that local university students as well as elementary school students can find it a friendly place to learn a complex subject.
Three "time walks" at the park
explain how earth and life have
changed through time (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Each time walk is divided into geologic
eons, periods or epochs, as
appropriate. The time walks are
clearly labeled in tile and of an
appropriate length. Hand-made
tiles set into the concrete walkways
(Figure 2) show animal and
plant species representative of
each time interval. 
Figure 2Other tiles,
placed at appropriate points along
the time walks, note local geologic
events, mass extinctions, ice ages,
and human and planetary events.
Tracks of trilobites, tetrapods and
dinosaurs show how these animals
moved (Figure 3), and tile plate
tectonic maps depict continental
drift through time.
Figure 3
The Earth Time Walk describes the entire 4600-million–year history of earth, and one step along this 20-meter–long path covers about 150 million years. The Life Time Walk covers from the start of the Cambrian Period, 542 million years ago, when multicellular life blossomed, to the present, and each step along this 60-meter–long path covers about five million years. The Human Time Walk describes the most recent 50 000 years of earth history, and one step along this 8-meter path covers about 4000 years. An introductory sign and guideposts introduce visitors to geologic time and the features of the park, and help them navigate between the different time scales of each walk. Other signs note plant species used in the landscaping, and provide information on local rock types. There are also four large interpretive signs, one each to explain local geology, mass extinctions, plate tectonics, and evolution (Figure 4).
Figure 4
Landscaping along the Life Time Walk follows the evolution of land plants. Along the Cambrian and Ordovician sections the landscaping is bare rock, because land plants (except perhaps for algae) had not colonized the land at that time. Mosses and liverworts, representing the first land plants, appear along the Silurian part of the walk, followed, at appropriate points, by club mosses, horsetails and ferns, cycads, conifers, ginkgo, flowering plants and grasses. In addition, boulders of local rock types are laid out in stratigraphic order across the park, tilted slabs of rock are placed to mimic outcrops of anticlines and synclines, and fossils and interesting rock types are incorporated into retaining walls.
A 20-page color brochure is available at the park for extra-curious visitors. In it detailed descriptions of major events and interesting organisms are provided for each geologic interval. Extra information on plant evolution, mass extinctions, biological evolution, local geology, and plate tectonics is also included. For students, a two-part educational program has been set up by the North Mountain Park Nature Center. First a docent visits the classroom and explains geologic time and how to use the scale bar on a tile to determine the size of the animal depicted. This is followed by a field trip to the park, during which students use information at the park to discover earth history. Discovery is helped along by multi-page activity sheets that students fill out at the park. There are three sets of activity sheets, one each for elementary, middle and high school grade levels. A 55-page teacher's guide gives educators detailed information on all aspects of the park.
Reaction so far has been very positive from the schools and the community. We hear that the artwork of the tiles, the lush landscaping, high quality rock work, and the interpretive signs combine to make the Park a pleasure to visit and the science fun and interesting to learn. Readers are cordially invited to visit Ashland and the Briscoe Geology Park.
Charles Darwin: Botanist
Introduction
While Charles Darwin is famous throughout the world for the development of the theory of evolution and natural selection, few appreciate that he was also a preeminent botanist. Darwin’s work in botany is extremely varied and includes experiments that are still cited in college-level textbooks because of their elegant experimental design and results. And of course, Darwin’s botanical observations, along with his extensive knowledge of many other areas of science (for example, geology and zoology), were involved in shaping his ideas on evolution.
Darwin’s botanical interests were broad and eclectic. He published books on such far-ranging topics as domesticated plants (1875), orchid pollination (1877a), heterostyly (1877b), the effects of cross and self pollination (1878), plant movements and tropisms (1881, 1882), and insectivorous plants (1888). In addition to these works, Darwin also published botanical work in journals, was in regular correspondence with many of the outstanding botanists of the time (for example, Joseph Hooker and Asa Gray), and, in later life, worked with his son Francis on botanical research.
Darwin’s love of plants appears to have been deeply rooted in his childhood. His parents were both interested in gardening and maintained a varied collection of plants in their conservatory and gardens in Shrewsbury, where Darwin grew up. Indeed, one of the few images of Darwin as a child (age 6) show him kneeling with a potted plant on his thigh. In his autobiographical chapter, Darwin (1887) mentions that “…apparently I was interested at this early age in the variability of plants!” A schoolfellow remembers Darwin’s bringing a flower to school and saying that his mother had taught him how to identify the plant by studying the flower.
Darwin’s interest in botany reasserted itself when he attended Cambridge in 1828, where he was greatly influenced by the botanist, John S Henslow. In his own words (Darwin 1887: 52): “Before long I became well acquainted with Henslow, and during the latter half of my time at Cambridge took long walks with him on most days; so that I was called by some of the dons ‘the man who walks with Henslow;’ and in the evening I was very often asked to join his family dinner.” Henslow’s main research interest during this time was understanding patterns of variation within and between populations, work that is believed to have given Darwin material for his later understanding of variation and speciation (Kohn and others 2005).
Henslow is responsible for arranging Darwin’s position as gentleman naturalist on HMS Beagle. During the voyage, Darwin displayed great interest in the flora he encountered and collected more than 2000 herbarium specimens. His collections of “all plants in flower” from the Galápagos Islands, were the basis for the first flora of that archipelago and were largely responsible for his understanding of island endemism (Kohn and others 2005).
It would be no trivial task to report here on all of Darwin’s botanical work, so instead, I will feature a few examples that represent his use of rigorous scientific methodology, sharp powers of observation, and creative thinking. I will report his work on 1) heterostyly in Primula (primroses), 2) plant movements and phototropism, and 3) pollination mechanisms in orchids.
Heterostyly in Primula veris,the English Cowslip
Darwin was first exposed to an extraordinary observation relating to one of Great Britain’s most loved wild flowers, the English cowslip, by his mentor John Henslow: that the length of styles and stamens varied among individual plants (Kohn and others 2005). Some plants had flowers with long stamens and short styles — the thrum type; others had flowers with short stamens and long styles — the pin type (Figure 1). This phenomenon is known as heterostyly, and Darwin studied it extensively in the 1850s (Darwin 1877b). He also observed that the two flower types varied in pollen size; pollen produced by pin flowers was noticeably smaller in diameter than that produced by thrum flowers. What could be the explanation for these phenomena?
Figure 1. Figure from Darwin’s work on heterostyly in Primula species (1877) showing the long style and short stamens of the pin flowers and the short style and long stamens of the thrum flowers.
His first hypothesis was that Primula veris was tending toward dioecy (where a species has male individuals with only male flowers and female individuals with female flowers). His reasoning behind this was: “Pin plants with their longer carpels, smaller stamens and pollen grains are more feminine; conversely thrum plants are more masculine”. If this were true, then, he expected, pin plants should produce more seeds than thrum plants. To test this, he collected seeds from plants growing in different habitats (to negate possible environmental effects), then counted and weighed them. The results? Pin plants produced less seed than thrum by a proportion of nearly 3 to 4, suggesting that pin plants were certainly not more “feminine” than thrum.
His next hypothesis was: “The two forms of flowers in Primula are related to cross-pollination and prevention of inbreeding.” To test this he set up a sophisticated pollination experiment. First, he covered populations of Primula with fine netting to prevent insect pollination. He then hand pollinated the plants in the following combinations: 1) thrum plants pollinated with pin pollen and vice versa, 2) thrum plants pollinated with thrum pollen, and 3) pin plants pollinated with pin pollen. In cases in which he was using pollen from like plants (2 and 3 above), he always took the pollen from a different plant than the one being pollinated to avoid any effects of inbreeding. This alone shows the depths of his knowledge about reproduction and the care he took in his experimental design.
After the plants had set seed, he counted and weighed seeds from both 100 flowers and 100 capsules. He found that by all measures, plants pollinated by the opposite type of flower had markedly greater reproductive success. From this work he concluded: “The benefit of heterostyled dimorphic plants derives from.....the intercrossing of distinct plants” and “the pollen grains from the longer stamens.....become larger in order to allow the development of longer [pollen] tubes.”
Plant movements and phototropism
Darwin explored plant movements extensively, from the way vines and other plants circumnutate (successive bowing or bending in different directions of the growing tip of the stem) to sleep movements (folding of leaves up or down at night [Darwin 1881]) to movements of insectivorous plants (Darwin 1888). In all his explorations, he performed numerous experiments. For example, in insectivorous plants such as the Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) and Sundews (Drosera spp), he explored how food was absorbed by the leaves, what effect various “foodstuffs” had on the plant’s ability to react or absorb, and how the impulse to move was transmitted.
The elegant experiments of Darwin and his son Francis on phototropism — the growth of a plant towards a unidirectional source of light — are commonly cited in biology textbooks today (Darwin 1881). In their work on phototropism in Canary grass seedlings (Phalaris canariensis), they observed in experiments on seedlings raised in the dark, then exposed to a unidirectional source of light, a marked curvature toward the light. They formed a hypothesis that the tip of the seedling may be responsible for the curvature toward light. To test this hypothesis, they cut the tips off some seedlings while leaving a control group with tips intact. They found that those seedlings with the tips removed did not respond to a unidirectional source of light while the control group with tips intact bent markedly toward the light source.
But the question remained: Did the experimental seedlings remain upright due to their tips not being present to detect light or because they had been damaged? To address this question, they covered some seedling tips with opaque caps and, as controls, covered other tips with transparent caps or placed opaque collars around the base of the seedlings, leaving the tips exposed. They found that the seedlings with opaque caps remained upright, showing no signs of phototropism, while both controls did bend toward the light.
From all of this work, they concluded: “These results seem to imply the presence of some matter in the upper part which is acted on by light, and which transmits its effects to the lower part.” We now know that this “matter” is a plant hormone called auxin. Auxin is produced in the apical meristem of plants, is transported down the stem, and accumulates on the shady side of a plant subjected to unidirectional light. This increased concentration of auxin causes the cells on the dark side to enlarge, thus bending the plant toward light. Of course Darwin and his son knew nothing about this mechanism, but their work laid the foundation for subsequent experiments that led to our current understanding of auxins.
Pollination mechanisms in orchids
It is hard to conceive that any botanist worth his weight in chlorophyll would be immune to the charms and foibles of orchids, and Darwin was no exception. He was especially interested in the close relationship between the flowers of an orchid species and their pollinators (Darwin 1877a). There can be little doubt that his work on orchids provided him with ample material for understanding co-evolution.
Darwin made minute observations on pollination in diverse orchids, including the fascinating bee orchids (Ophrys species). Ophrys excel in the lengths they will go to attract a pollinator. Depending on the species, they mimic female bees, wasps, or beetles. To add to the ruse, they emit pheromones, and these “come hither” smells strongly attract male insects, causing the male to attempt copulation with the orchid flower. As the male pseudocopulates with the orchid flower, packets of pollen called pollinia are attached to his body. And of course, the male is drawn to other individuals of the same orchid species for similar reasons, depositing pollen on the receptive stigma, thus effecting cross-pollination. Darwin spent many hours in painstaking observations and experiments on Ophrys and other orchids to understand the mechanics of pollinia and their attachment to pollinators.
Darwin was fascinated by the observation that a bee orchid common to England, Ophrys apifera, was apparently “adapted to self-fertilization.” His further observations convinced him that these self-pollinating orchids still retained the mechanisms needed for pollination by bees. When he imitated a bee’s action using an object, the pollinia reacted as in other Ophrys, readily attaching to what would have been the bee’s head. He concluded that Ophrys apifera must have at one time been commonly pollinated by bees but, due to an insufficiency of pollinators, “became slightly modified so as to fertilise themselves” (Darwin 1877a).
A famous example of co-evolution in orchids that came in for its share of controversy was Darwin’s explanation for the pollination of Angraecum sesquipedale, an orchid native to Madagascar. This orchid has flowers with very long spurs — about 20–35 cm long! Orchids with spurred flowers usually offer a nectar reward at the base of the spur, to reward the moth pollinator. Darwin hypothesized that Angraecum must be pollinated by a moth with a proboscis long enough to reach the nectar and thus effect pollination. This idea was derided and even used as proof of creationism. In 1867, George Campbell published a book in which he argued that the complexity of A sesquipedale supports the idea that species were created by a supernatural being. Unfortunately for Campbell, a moth with a proboscis of the required length was found in 1903; it was first named Xanthopan morganii praedicta to honor Darwin’s correct prediction.
Summary
It is clear, even from the few examples given above, that Darwin’s botanical work was important to the development of his ideas on evolution and natural selection. Darwin began thinking about evolution soon after his return from the Beagle voyages, starting his notebooks on “transmutation” (evolution) in 1837. He was uniquely situated for the task of developing the theory of evolution, from his early exposure to Lamarckian evolutionary thinking through his grandfather (Erasmus Darwin) and Robert Grant at the University of Edinburgh, his early exposure to the work of Charles Lyell’s book on fossils and the botanist Henslow’s work on populations and speciation, his travels on the Beagle, and his broad knowledge of so many aspects of natural history. This is not to discount other attributes that uniquely placed Darwin to develop the theory: he was hard working and, since independently wealthy, able to spend all of his time on his science. Most importantly, he was able to think logically and creatively (“outside the box” as we say today).
There is no doubt that all the clues and scientific advancements needed to develop the theory of evolution and natural selection were present in the early 19th century. If Darwin had not proposed the theory of evolution, someone else would have. In fact, that is exactly what did happen! Because Darwin put off publication of his ideas, Alfred Russel Wallace caught up with him, and the two presented their findings simultaneously in 1858. But I think that Darwin deserves to have the greater part of the credit. He developed his understanding of evolution and natural selection well before Wallace and it was he who took on the enormous task in the Origin (1859) and elsewhere of convincing the world that evolution was real.
References
Campbell G. 1867. The Reign of Law. London: Strahan.
Darwin CR. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.
Darwin CR. 1875. The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. 2d ed. London: John Murray.
Darwin CR. 1877a. The Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilised by Insects. 2d ed. London: John Murray.
Darwin CR 1877b. The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species. New York: D Appleton.
Darwin CR 1878. The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom. 2d ed. London: John Murray.
Darwin CR. 1881. The power of movement in plants. New York: D Appleton.
Darwin CR. 1882. The movements and habits of climbing plants. London: John Murray.
Darwin CR. 1888. Insectivorous plants. 2d ed. Revised by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray.
Darwin F, editor. 1887. The life and letters of Charles Darwin, including an autobiographical chapter. Vol 1. London: John Murray.
Kohn D, Murrell G, Parker J, Whitehorn M. 2005. What Henslow taught Darwin. Nature 436: 643–5.
Evolution Learning Community Encourages Dialog on Evolution at UNC Wilmington
For the past three years, the Evolution Learning Community (ELC) at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, has sponsored a variety of speakers, courses and public events related to the study of Darwin and evolution. These activities will culminate in the year-long commemoration in 2009 of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On The Origin of Species.
After the success of a similar learning community focused on Brown v Board of Education in 2004, the campus began to discuss the feasibility of a multiyear, interdisciplinary learning community on the topic of evolution. Developed through a grassroots faculty effort and endorsed by the Faculty Senate, the ELC is dedicated to the study of the theory of evolution and its scientific, social, and moral significance for humanity. The executive council of the ELC is headed by Patricia Kelley, Professor of Geology and long-time NCSE Supporter, Dale McCall, Professor of Anthropology and Genetics, and Thomas Schmid, Professor of Philosophy.
Schmid, one of the founders of the group, said of the ELC: “We were looking for a campus-wide series of events that would be long-lasting and substantial and might generate some curricular change. We’ve taken a very academic approach. The focus is not to create a debate on evolution but to develop dialogue and educational opportunities for UNCW as well as the larger community.”
The group has coordinated educational and cultural events for students, faculty, staff and the community to increase awareness and critical discussion of the role of evolutionary principles in the natural and social sciences and in relation to the philosophical, historical, artistic and literary modes of reflection on life.
Activities have included more than 50 formal ELC-related courses per semester, the Visiting Darwin Scholars lecture series, discussion groups and Honors enrichment seminars, cultural events such as film screenings and an art show, community outreach with public lectures and Continuing Studies courses, faculty professional development and student research opportunities, ELC-related publications, and a faculty and student trip to the Galápagos Islands. Visiting Darwin Scholars have included Richard Leakey, EO Wilson, Stephen J O’Brien, and NCSE Supporters Ken Miller and Niles Eldredge. Details and information about the program and events is available on line at www.uncw.edu/evolution.
The work of the Evolution Learning Community will culminate with several significant events in 2009. In March, UNCW hosts “Darwin’s Legacy: Evolution’s Impact on Science and Culture — A Multidisciplinary Student Conference.” The conference is open to undergraduate and graduate students in the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts who are conducting research or creative endeavors related to evolution. Faculty members supervising student research are also encouraged to attend. In addition to oral and poster presentations of student research, the conference will also feature keynote speakers David Buss, a leading theorist in evolutionary psychology; Peter Carruthers, a leading theorist in evolution and language; David Mindell, Dean of Science and Research Collections at the California Academy of Sciences; and Kevin Padian, vertebrate paleontologist, witness at the Dover trial, and president of the NCSE board of directors.
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“The breadth of programming and strong student involvement has been a key to the success of the ELC,” said Kelley, executive administrator of the group and herself a nationally known speaker on evolution and religion. “We have had increased dialog among faculty and between faculty and students as a direct result of the ELC effort. These are important scholarly conversations that would not have happened without this initiative.”
Other major events planned for 2009 include Visiting Darwin Scholars Eugenie C Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education; Dirk Robert Johnson, Associate Professor of Modern Languages at Hampden-Sydney College, whose scholarly work explores the intellectual interaction between Darwin and Nietzsche; Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and NCSE Supporter; and David Quammen, award-winning author of The Reluctant Mr Darwin. For academic year 2008-2009, the ELC coordinated a Visiting Darwin Scholars competition to fund visiting scholars. Illustrating the interdisciplinary nature of the ELC, proposals to bring speakers to campus came from the Departments of Anthropology, Art and Art History, Biology and Marine Biology, Chemistry, Creative Writing, English, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Geography and Geology, History, Philosophy and Religion, Psychology and the Watson School of Education.
In addition, Ecotone, the university’s literary journal edited by David Gessner, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, will publish a special issue in spring 2009 celebrating the Darwin anniversaries. Through the Ecotone Evolution Contest, the journal accepted submissions in poetry, fiction and nonfiction that creatively reflect the subject of evolution. The magazine sought bold interpretations of a theory that has radically altered the experience of being human: What does it mean to share our DNA with other animals? What are the consequences of our diminishing biodiversity? Why have political lines hardened around an issue so rooted in science?
Students participating in the NSF-funded ELC-related summer program Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Biodiversity Conservation.
A special issue of the Journal of Effective Teaching, an online peer-reviewed journal dedicated to teaching excellence and edited by UNCW faculty member Russell Herman, will be devoted to the teaching of evolution in a university setting. Submissions for the special issue, to be published in fall 2009, will be accepted through May 1.
Throughout all of the activities and events related to evolution, the ELC has maintained one basic premise: no matter how one views the meaning of Darwin’s revolutionary work for modern thought, there is no denial that it transformed biological science and the picture our society has of humans in nature. This statement has formed the basis for inquiry and dialog related to evolution, bringing an entire university campus together to consider what it means to be human.
For more information, connect to the Evolution Learning Community web site at www.uncw.edu/evolution.
Moves and Countermoves in Texas
The end of 2008 was replete with moves and countermoves in the controversy over the place of evolution in Texas's state science standards, beginning with the release of proposed drafts of the state's science education standards on September 22, 2008. Not surprisingly, the media focused on the place of evolution in the draft standards, with the Dallas Morning News (2008 Sep 23) reporting, "Proposed curriculum standards for science courses in Texas schools would boost the teaching of evolution by dropping the current requirement that students be exposed to 'weaknesses' in Charles Darwin's theory of how humans and other life forms evolved. Science standards drafted by review committees of teachers and academics also would put up roadblocks for teachers who want to discuss creationism or 'intelligent design' in biology classes when covering the subject of evolution."
In particular, a requirement in the current standards for high school biology that reads "The student is expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information" would be replaced with "The student is expected to analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing," and a description of the limits of science (adapted from the recent National Academy of Sciences publication Science, Evolution, and Creationism) — "Science uses observational evidence to make predictions of natural phenomena and to construct testable explanations. If ideas are based upon purported forces outside of nature, they cannot be tested using scientific methods" — would be added.
Such revisions may seem small and unimportant, but in 2003, the "strengths and weaknesses" language in the Texas state science standards was selectively applied by members of the board attempting to dilute the treatment of evolution in the biology textbooks then under consideration. At the time, board member Patricia Hardy observed that it was invidious to apply the language only to a single topic; while if it were applied across the board, "we'd need a crane to carry the books to the schools." In the end, all of the textbooks were adopted without substantial changes, but it was clear that the "strengths and weaknesses" language would be a matter of contention when the standards were next revised. As Kathy Miller of the Texas Freedom Network told The New York Times (2008 Jun 4), "'Strengths and weaknesses' are regular words that have now been drafted into the rhetorical arsenal of creationists."
Groups supporting the integrity of science education unsurprisingly applauded the draft standards. In a September 23, 2008, press release (available on-line at http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5453), the Texas Freedom Network's Kathy Miller was quoted as saying, "These work groups have crafted solid standards that provide a clear road map to a 21st-century science education for Texas students ... These commonsense standards respect the right of families to pass on their own religious beliefs to their children while ensuring that public schools give students a sound science education that prepares them to succeed in college and the jobs of the future." "It's time for state board members to listen to classroom teachers and true experts instead of promoting their own personal agendas," she added. "Our students can't succeed with a 19th-century science education in their 21st-century classrooms. We applaud the science work groups for recognizing that fact."
In a September 23, 2008, blog post for the Houston Chronicle (available on-line via http://www.chron.com/commons/readerblogs/evosphere.html), Texas Citizens for Science's Steven Schafersman also welcomed the addition of the description of the limits of science and the removal of the "strengths and weaknesses" language, which he described as "the primary weapon that creationists have to attempt to damage and corrupt science textbooks." He expressed regret, however, that those revisions were not emulated in all of the standards. Schafersman also lamented the omission from the biology standards of any requirement to learn about human evolution in particular, commenting," I'm sure the competent teachers on the biology panel discussed a requirement for human evolution, but they ultimately decided against it. They should have included it and forced the [state board of education] members to remove it by majority vote rather than by giving their prior permission to continue censorship."
The chair of the state board of education, avowed creationist Don McLeroy, defended the "strengths and weaknesses" language, telling the Austin American-Statesman (2008 Sep 23), "I'd argue it doesn't make sense scientifically to take it out ... Evolution shouldn't have anything to worry about — if there's no weaknesses, there's no weaknesses. But if there's scientifically testable explanations out there to refute it, shouldn't those be included too?" The newspaper added, "he prefers the 'strengths and weaknesses' language because it allows the board to reject a textbook that doesn't cover the weaknesses of evolution." But Kevin Fisher, who helped to write the draft biology standards, told the American-Statesman, "Something doesn't become a theory if it's got weaknesses. There may be some questions that may yet to be answered, but nothing that's to the level of a weakness."
Clearly the treatment of evolution in the standards — and especially the omission of the "strengths and weaknesses" language — was going to continue to be controversial. Summarizing the political situation on the state board of education, the American-Statesman reported, "In previous public discussions, seven of 15 board members appeared to support, on some level, the teaching of the weaknesses of evolution in science classrooms. Six have been opposed, and two — Geraldine Miller, R–Dallas, and Rick Agosto, D–San Antonio — are considered swing votes." And, as Schafersman commented, "Since there are no scientists on the SBOE and since seven members are young-earth creationists — most of whom have publicly stated their intention to distort evolution standards and damage science instruction — it is likely that the public debate and approval will be contentious."
Schafersman was not wrong. The next focus of contention was the composition of a six-member committee appointed by the board to review the draft set of science standards. Included were three anti-evolutionists, and defenders of the integrity of science education were livid. "The committee was chosen by 12 of the 15 members of the board of education, with each panel member receiving the support of two board members," as the Dallas Morning News (2008 Oct 16) explained. Six members of the board "aligned with social conservative groups" chose Stephen C Meyer, the director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture; Ralph Seelke, a biology professor at the University of Wisconsin, Superior; and Charles Garner, a chemistry professor at Baylor University.
Meyer, Seelke, and Garner are all signatories of the Discovery Institute-sponsored "Dissent from Darwinism" statement (see RNCSE 2001 Nov/Dec; 21 [6]: 22–3). Meyer and Seelke are also coauthors of Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism (Melbourne: Hill House, 2008), which, like Of Pandas and People, is a supplementary textbook that is intended to instill scientifically unwarranted doubts about evolution. A recent review by biologist John Timmer (available on-line at http://arstechnica.com/reviews/other/discovery-textbook-review.ars) summarized, "But the book doesn't only promote stupidity, it demands it. In every way except its use of the actual term, this is a creationist book." (Timmer's review of Explore Evolution will be reprinted in a future issue of RNCSE.) Garner, for his part, reportedly told the Houston Press (2000 Dec 14) that he "criticizes evolutionary theory in class."
Meyer and Seelke also testified in the 2005 "kangaroo court" hearings held by three anti-evolutionist members of the Kansas state board of education, in which a parade of anti-evolutionist witnesses expressed their support for the socalled minority report version of the state science standards (written with the aid of a local "intelligent design" organization), complained of repression by a dogmatic evolutionary establishment, and claimed to have detected atheism lurking "between the lines" of the standards (transcripts are available on-line at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/kansas/kangaroo.html). A version of the minority report was adopted in 2005, despite criticism from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Science Teachers Association, but the balance of power on the board changed, and supporters of the integrity of science education quickly restored a proper treatment of evolution to the Kansas standards.
Referring to the appointment of Meyer, Seelke, and Garner, Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network told the Austin American-Stateman (2008 Oct 16), "I think these state board members have really lifted the veil on what their real agenda is here ... It's clear they picked a few experts and a few people with a clear conflict of interest and a political agenda." Similarly, in a press release issued on October 15, 2008 (available on-line at http://www.texscience.org/releases/creationists-science-reviewpanel.htm), Texas Citizens for Science's Steven Schafersman lamented, "It is unfortunate that some SBOE members have such a poor regard for the education of Texas science students that they must resort to pushing their own anti-evolutionist and creationist religious ideologies into the science standards revision process."
The three remaining members of the committee — "veteran science professors from major Texas universities," as the Morning News observed — were David Hillis, a professor of biology at the University of Texas, Austin; Gerald Skoog, a professor of education at Texas Tech University, and Ronald Wetherington, a professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University. The American-Statesman noted,"a seventh panel member could be nominated. The panel is expected to send recommendations on the proposal back to the board in the coming months." In the end, there was no seventh member. And although the recommendations of the individual committee members were completed and posted on the Texas Education Agency's website (available on-line at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/teks/science/expertfeedback.html), there was little reaction to or comment on their suggestions in the media. The panels that wrote the standards for the various subjects were furnished with the outside reviews as well as feedback from the public, a comparison of the draft standards to the Texas College Readiness Standards, and a comparison of the draft standards with the highly regarded Massachusetts science standards.
Meanwhile, the scientific community, both in Texas and nationally, was not remaining silent about the need for a proper treatment of evolution. The 21st Century Science Coalition's advisory committee published a pair of op-eds urging the state board of education to accept the draft standards, emphasizing the scientific centrality and the economic importance of evolution (see sidebar 1). The chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Alan I Leshner, argued, "The new standards will shape how science education is taught in Texas for the next decade, and it would be a terrible mistake to water down the teaching of evolution in any way" (see sidebar 2). Barbara Forrest explained "Why Texans shouldn't let creationists mess with science education" in a November 11, 2008, lecture at Southern Methodist University in Dallas (video is available on-line at http://smu.edu/flashvideo/?id=248; audio is available on-line at http://smu.edu/newsinfo/audio/barbaraforrest-11nov2008.mp3). And a study conducted by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund and Raymond Eve demonstrated that a vast majority of scientists at public and private universities in Texas reject the arguments advanced by those seeking to undermine the treatment of evolution in Texas's state science standards (see sidebar 3).
At last the day appointed for the Texas state board of education to hear testimony about the proposed new set of state science standards arrived, November 19, 2008 — and plenty of the testimony concerned the treatment of evolution in the standards. As the Dallas Morning News (2008 Nov 20) explained, the standards "will dictate what is taught in science classes in elementary and secondary schools and provide the material for state tests and textbooks. The standards will remain in place for a decade after their approval by the state board." The standards under consideration were not the version released in September 2008, but a revised version drafted in November 2008 and not posted on the Texas Education Agency's website until November 17, 2008. A significant difference is that the September version omitted the "strengths and weaknesses" language of the old standards, which was selectively applied in 2003 by members of the board seeking to dilute the treatment of evolution in biology textbooks, while the November version included a variant of it: "strengths and limitations."
Texas Citizens for Science's Steven Schafersman told the board that the "strengths and weaknesses" language was unscientific and pedagogically inappropriate, according to the Austin American-Statesman (2008 Nov 20). He was not alone in defending the teaching of evolution at the meeting. In a story significantly headlined "Evolution proponents descend on state education panel," the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (2008 Nov 20) observed, "With few exceptions, the speakers — scientists, teachers, clergy and grassroots activists — took the side of evolution," a situation that evidently vexed the chair of the board, avowed creationist Don McLeroy, who complained,"This is all being ginned up by the evolution side."
Reflecting on the spectacle, the Corpus Christi Call-Times (2008 Nov 20) editorially commented, "Members of the state board of ducation, as they prepare to establish a new science curriculum, should certainly heed the advice of the state's top science teachers: Teaching the 'weaknesses' of the theory of evolution raises questions about its validity, questions that are not shared by established science. Public schools should teach evolution. Period. Texas students will have to compete in the real world, not the flat earth of the past." In addition to the newspaper reports, detailed running commentary on the meeting was posted on their blogs by representatives of two of the groups defending the integrity of science education in Texas: Texas Citizens for Science, on the Houston Chronicle's Evo. Sphere blog (http://www.chron.com/commons/readerblogs/evosphere.html), and the Texas Freedom Network, on its own blog (http://tfnblog.wordpress.com). Both groups are going to continue to monitor the standards, which are expected first to return to the writing committee for revisions in December 2008, and then return to the board for consideration in January 2009.
AUTHOR'S ADDRESSGlenn Branch
NCSE
PO Box 9477
Berkeley CA 94709-0477
branch@ncseweb.org
Glenn Branch is deputy director of NCSE.
Sidebar 1 |
COALITION DEFENDS DRAFT STANDARDS IN TEXAS"The State Board of Education's decisions in the coming months will affect both the college preparation and future job qualifications of our children. Our students deserve a sound education that includes the latest findings of scientific research and excludes ideas that have failed to stand up to scientific scrutiny." That was the message of the 21st Century Science Coalition's advisory committee — Daniel I Bolnick, RE Duhrkopf, David M Hillis, Ben Pierce, and Sahotra Sarkar — delivered in twin op-eds published in two Texas newspapers, the Waco Tribune (2008 Oct 19), and the Austin American-Statesman (2008 Oct 21). In their op-eds, after describing the vast amount of scientific research that supports evolution, and the absence of any compelling evidence against it, Bolnick and his colleagues responded to the charge of censorship: "Evolution opponents who promote such phony 'weaknesses' claim we are trying to censor them, suppressing free speech. But the entire point of education is to provide students with the best information available, without wasting time on bogus arguments. We don't teach alchemy alongside chemistry, for example, or astrology alongside physics. We don't ask students to decide for themselves whether Earth revolves around the Sun or vice versa. Is that 'censorship'?" They also emphasized the increasing economic importance of evolution education, writing, "We can't expect future citizens of Texas to be successful in a 21st-century world with a 19th-century science education. Once our children enter the work force, they will find that understanding evolution is central to many innovations in medicine, agriculture, engineering and biotechnology. Undermining biology education risks driving away biotechnology and other industries from our state." The Austin American-Statesman (2008 Oct 6) already editorially agreed, noting that biomedical industries "have not looked favorably on communities that water down science studies with vague and unproven ideas." The 21st Century Science Coalition (on-line at |
Sidebar 2 |
AAAS CONCERNED ABOUT TEXAS SCIENCE STANDARDSWriting in the Houston Chronicle (2008 Oct 22), the chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Alan I Leshner, deplored the recent appointment of three anti-evolutionists to a committee charged with reviewing a draft of Texas's state science standards. "The new standards will shape how science education is taught in Texas for the next decade, and it would be a terrible mistake to water down the teaching of evolution in any way," he wrote, adding, "At a time when most educators are working to prepare students for 21st century jobs, the board members' action threatens to confuse students, divide communities and tarnish Texas' reputation as an international science and technology center." Leshner's op-ed emphasized the strength of the scientific consensus on evolution ("Mainstream science and medical organizations in the United States and worldwide, representing tens of millions of scientists, accept evolution as the best explanation for how life developed on Earth"), the fact that many people of faith, including scientists and clergy alike, regard evolution as no threat to their faith, and the importance of preserving the integrity of science education. But what he hammered home was the economic importance of a quality science education: "To maintain the state's strength as an engine of US research and innovation, Texas education leaders should stick to the basics. Students need a solid science foundation to thrive in the 21st century." In supporting a scientifically appropriate and pedagogically responsible treatment of evolution in the Texas state science standards, Leshner joined the 21st Century Science Coalition, the Texas Freedom Network, and Texas Citizens for Science, as well as the editorial boards of the Waco Tribune (2008 Oct 3) and the Austin American-Statesman (2008 Oct 6). As the world's largest general interest scientific organization, the AAAS regularly defends the teaching of evolution in the public schools, and presents a useful collection of relevant statements, publications, resources, and links in a section of its on-line press room (http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/evolution). |
Sidebar 3 |
TEXAS SCIENTISTS OVERWHELMINGLY REJECT ANTI-EVOLUTION ARGUMENTSScientists at public and private universities in Texas overwhelmingly reject the arguments advanced by the anti-evolutionists seeking to undermine the treatment of evolution in Texas's state science standards, according to a report released by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. "This survey leaves no doubt that the political crusade against evolution and other attempts to dumb down our public school science curriculum are deeply misguided," TFN Education Fund president Kathy Miller said in a press release (available on-line at http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5621). "Texas scientists are clearly worried that failing to provide a 21st-century science education in our public schools will harm our children's chances to succeed in college and the jobs of the future." The report, entitled Evolution, Creationism, and Public Education: Surveying What Texas Scientists Think about Educating Our Kids in the 21st Century (available on-line as a PDF at http://www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/FinalWebPost.pdf?docID=861), details a survey conducted by the TFN Education Fund in conjunction with Raymond Eve, a sociology professor at the University of Texas, Arlington, who is the coauthor with Francis B Harrold of The Creationist Movement in Modern America (Boston: Twayne, 1990). The survey was sent to the 1019 biologists and biological anthropologists on the faculty of all 35 public and the 15 largest private colleges and universities in Texas. The response rate was high — 45% of those surveyed responded. "Their responses should send parents a clear message that those who want to play politics with science education are putting our kids at risk," Eve commented. The TFN Education Fund's press release summarizes five key findings from the survey: "1. Texas scientists (97.7%) overwhelmingly reject 'intelligent design' as valid science. 2. Texas science faculty (95%) want only evolution taught in science classrooms. 3. Scientists reject teaching the so-called 'weaknesses' of evolution, with 94% saying that those arguments are not valid scientific objections to evolution. 4. Science faculty believe that emphasizing 'weaknesses' of evolution would substantially harm students' college readiness (79.6%) and ability to compete for 21st-century jobs (72%). 5. Scientists (91%) strongly believe that support for evolution is compatible with religious faith." Evolution, Creationism, and Public Education was released just as the Texas State Board of Education was preparing to consider a new draft set of state science standards from November 19 to November 21, 2008, hearing testimony from the public on November 19. The Dallas Morning News (2008 Nov 17) reported that "a majority of members have voiced support for retaining the current mandate to cover both strengths and weaknesses of major scientific theories, notably evolution, in science courses." But the TFN Education Fund's Kathy Miller told the newspaper that it would be a mistake for the board not to heed the clear consensus of Texas science professors: "This survey leaves no doubt that the political crusade against evolution and other attempts to dumb down our public school science curriculum are deeply misguided." |
Siccar Point
What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen then emerging from the deep... The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time.—John Playfair, upon seeing Siccar Point*
During June 1788, Scottish geologist James Hutton — along with mathematician John Playfair and chemist James Hall — visited Siccar Point, which is arguably the most important geological site in the world (Figure 1). Siccar Point is a rocky promontory "washed bare by the sea" on the Berwickshire coast near Scotland's border with England. Geologically speaking, Siccar Point is an unconformity — a term coined in 1805 by geologist Robert Jameson to describe a surface at which two separate sets of rocks formed at different times come into contact. Sediments at the base of Siccar Point are vertical and, because sediments can only form horizontally, Hutton knew that these sediments had been tilted and raised above land by pressure. Erosion had then worn away the above-ground parts of the vertical sediments, after which they were again submerged and covered by new horizontally deposited sediment (Figures 2 and 3). Charles Lyell, who visited Siccar Point with Hall in 1824, used a sketch of the site as the frontispiece of his Manual of Elementary Geology (1855). It is no wonder that Siccar Point is a Scottish National Heritage site.
The vertical sediments at Siccar Point are Silurian greywacke, a gray sedimentary rock formed approximately 425 million years ago when colliding plates created immense pressure that converted the sediment to rock. By about 80 million years later — a period that is more than 10 000 times longer than all of Archbishop Ussher's proposed history of earth — the raised greywacke had eroded and parts were again submerged in the ocean. Erosion of the nearby Caledonian Mountains produced reddish sandstone sediments (Old Red Sandstone of the Devonian) that were deposited horizontally over the vertical greywacke sediments (of the Silurian).When pressure created by moving plates again buckled the sediments, Siccar Point was raised above land for Hutton and others to see. Except for the chiseling by thousands of souvenir-seeking geologists who have visited the site, Siccar Point looks today as it did when it was visited by Hutton and his friends in 1788.
Finding Siccar Point: Although Siccar Point (Coordinate: 55° 55' 55.89" N, 2° 17' 54.74" W) is part of the James Hutton Trail, it is not marked on any of the tourist maps available at Edinburgh hotels. The best way to see Siccar Point is on a tour provided by GeoWalks (http://www.geowalks.demon.co.uk), a small geology-education company owned by Edinburgh geologist Angus Miller. Siccar Point is beautiful from above looking out onto the North Sea. If you choose to go down to the unconformity, be prepared to slide down the steep hill and to be quite exhausted by the time you get back to the top.There is a mold of a small part of Siccar Point on display at the American Museum of Natural History.
* Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Vol V, Pt III, 1805.
Review: Darwin and the Bible
The main theme of this book is clearly identified in its subtitle. To reflect the cultural conflict theme, the editors have invited authors with a variety of perspectives on the history and diversity of life and how best to account for it. The volume is polyvocal; the editors clearly did not constrain the authors significantly with a particular editorial perspective, even though the editors' perspectives are made quite clear in the introduction and conclusions.
The book is divided into three sections. The first allows proponents of the sciences and of various creationist — including "intelligent design" — models to make affirmative cases for their positions. There is a nice variety of ideas here, though there are some chapters that fall short. For example, though Stephen Jay Gould's NOMA construct is an important perspective, much of the material in the chapter is outdated. And Phillip Johnson's chapter — much abbreviated due to illness — fails to deliver much beyond presenting the basic claims of "intelligent design" (ID) and reads like little more than slogans. Furthermore, the lack of an exposition of a young-earth creationism is a glaring hole. Although young-earth creationists are perhaps not currently in the forefront politically, they are still a significant force on the "Bible" side of the divide.
Still, most of the material here is well presented and worth reading. Cohen's chapter — on the nature of science and the ways in which certain ideas and procedures that make science successful, such as uniformitarianism, have been demonized by opponents — is insightful. He makes clear one important point that is often muddied by ID proponents: even "intelligent" human behavior is still bound by the operation of natural laws. Therefore, it makes a poor analogy to their design arguments, which (despite their disavowals to the contrary) involve the supernatural.
Walter Hearn's chapter provides a voice seldom heard in the "controversy" but which is not an uncommon position: that of the evangelical Christian who accepts the power of natural laws and processes to produce complex biological outcomes. However, this chapter is mostly uninformative —much of it spent in defining and redefining terms, instead of addressing the issues.
Hewlett and Peters clarify the main issues and lay out the terrain that any victor must claim: the nature and definition of science. They clearly characterize the value of evolutionary theory as "a model that gives directions for scientists to pursue research" rather than an "absolute truth" (p 69). They also decry Darwinism — which they define as the various ideologies that emerge from the scientific theory and not intrinsic (or often even related) to the scientific process.
The second section focuses on historical developments. Jonathan Marks provides both a strong historical perspective as well as additional clarification on the nature and meaning of science: "This is not about whether we came from apes, but about how we draw scientific inferences" (p 95). Co-editor Robbins's chapter is a valuable rehabilitation of the reputation of William Jennings Bryan. Robbins points out that Bryan's concern was that Darwinism might lead to inequality, war, and social conflict. His analysis of the state of Darwinism in the 1920s — including Social Darwinism and eugenics — makes Bryan a more sympathetic character than pro-science readers may be accustomed to.
The first of Larson's chapters adds the necessary "post-Darwinian" development of evolutionary science. While anti-evolutionists often invoke Darwin and "Darwinism" in their critiques, this chapter makes clear how much of modern evolutionary science is non-Darwinian. A chapter by the late Ernst Mayr shows why Darwin's original construction still persists and provides the underpinning for modern evolutionary science. By contrast, NCSE's Glenn Branch illustrates the worldwide pattern of how opposition to evolutionary science is maintained and spread.
The final section focuses on issues that arise from evolution in the classroom. Larson's second contribution to this volume explores the conflict between tradition and modernity. It was not evolution itself that was responsible for the conflict, argues Larson, but intellectual and cultural trends that focused on "rational, naturalistic modes of analysis" (p 156) as the basis for understanding and solving the world's problems. This naturalistic focus is, of course, the main irritant that ID proponents want to remove from science, but Larson traces the effects of methodological naturalism on the development of anti-evolutionism throughout the 20th and into the 21st century. His concluding statement is realistic, if pessimistic: "If history is any guide, dark clouds remain on the horizon" (p 165).
Steve Randak adds a perspective that only a high-school biology teacher could provide. Picking up on the idea of "local control" in Larson's first chapter, he shows how it can play out in fervent opposition to evolution, even in a school district with a strong association with a major research university. His chapter perhaps illustrates what Larson meant by his closing remark. Next, one of those students with a strong anti-evolutionary upbringing, Laura Perras, tries to make sense of the scientific theories she is learning in university. This is a valuable voice to add to the conversation, but it is still rather underdeveloped in comparison to the others in the book.
It is in the conclusions that the co-editors' own perspectives become clearest. It is important, they urge, to separate science as the process of inquiry from science as the cultural institution (just as it is important to separate faith as a framework to understand the meaning, value, and purpose in life from faith as embodied in religious denominations). In one sense, this is a restatement and extension of Gould's NOMA construction, and one that recognizes that both science and religion are intricately woven into the fabric of our culture. Cohen seems to be calling for science and religion to find that place in contemporary culture where they can join their valuable contributions. And yet, Larson's warning still hangs over this aspiration.
Review: Darwinian Detectives
Just about every topic under the
banner "why genetics is important
to understand and still amazing to
many professional biologists" is covered
in this compact book. What a
delight to read about some well-chosen
examples, glittering in succinct
detail and presented in a manner designed to
intrigue and captivate a general audience.
After all, where else can you find the forensic
details about how a dentist did in an ex-lover with an HIV infection,
what the chimpanzee genome
project could tell us about differences
between the sex lives of all
three chimpanzees, the true origins
of Akita dogs, or what red-haired
singers might have in common with
talking Neanderthals? Think of the
conversation starters at your next
sushi bar encounter, where you can
captivate an audience with details
about the genomes of smooth versus
spiny pufferfish! Then toss off a
few comments about the delta 32
mutation in CCR5 and the Black
Plague, followed by the link
between silaic acids and huge
brains, and you are sure to be voted
geek of the week. The amazing thing
is that Norman Johnson has been
able to show the scientific method
making sense of the world in all this
crazy detail.
A designed biota would not be as messy, as haphazardly assembled, or as truly jerryrigged as the genetic systems cobbled together in the last billion years of random processes and presented here for your total wonderment.
Johnson starts with the general, boxing the math for readers to skip over completely or come back to later, and moves to the specific in well-organized sections. The book starts with a good exposition of the methods scientists use to deduce how genomes are organized and how they got that way, that is, evolution. His discussion on natural selection, both positive and negative, is clear and easy to follow. The focus on how scientists are able to identify cases of positive selection sets the stage for discussions of how populations (simple and complex, marine and terrestrial) have changed over time. In cases where morphological shifts cannot be clearly linked to environments undergoing directional change, he also does a good job of introducing a reader to the idea of balancing selection. If you had an hour to read a chapter a week, covering this book would be like taking a good college biology seminar in a semester with your favorite teacher. You come away with enough background to critically dissect a too facile news story, like the one for a "language gene" or "killer male gene". And if your interest runs to recreational genetics as in ancestry testing, you will learn enough here to know that even a $1000 test fee is going to give you a probability statement, not an identity link.
There is one glaring error on page 160 in the text, easily corrected, but unfortunate because it concerns dogs and how they changed in their domestication from a wolflike ancestor. Dogs have been bred to diverse body shapes, colors, and personalities, so much so that behavioral geneticists are particularly keen to unlock many secrets about genes contributing to behavioral patterns using the dog genome as a model system. Because many people have close relationships with their pets and may have missed early stages of behavioral development with their own children, this topic is close to a reader's heart and important to get right. So, when Johnson talks about the latest information from large-scale nuclear gene testing of 85 breeds of dogs and suggests that dogs originated from African stock, contradicting previous mitochondrial DNA work, he does so because he misidentifies the basal breeds in the dog tree as African, when in fact they are Asian. Anthropologists can now note that I am finally arguing for an Asian ancestry of one species dear to humans.
Another minor quibble is his failure to include a good discussion of superbugs, or bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics. Hospital acquired infections are important in an aging population undergoing more intense medical care, and while the latest statistics can be scary for someone spending time in an intensive care unit, it is also clear that school gymnasium facilities and hotel rooms with dirty remote controls or bedspreads can also be a problem. Herd immunity assumed by parents in an attempt to avoid autism risks, where failure to vaccinate has contributed to measles epidemics nationwide, is also a public health issue far more immediate than a potential bird flu mutation, yet these topics do not appear. Instead, a final chapter on genome evolution that attempts to give the big picture falls flat, and suffers from both over- and undersimplification, especially in the discussion of transposable elements and gene regulation.
I hope that biology teachers nationwide looking for evidence of evolution to engage their students with take a look at this book. I also hope that physicians who have a shaky understanding of evolutionary processes feel inclined to refresh how their practices can contribute to or detract from the general health of their patients. This slim volume sparked many discussions with airplane seatmates, and clearly covers stories that will resonate with a variety of readers. If a paperback version appears, it would also be a good text for a non-majors biology or an advanced placement high school class. Armed with the right information, these folks may themselves become citizen scientists.
Review: More than Darwin
Who replaced John Scopes at Rhea County High School in Dayton, Tennessee? Where was the first evolution course offered anywhere in the world taught? And who was the most controversial figure in the evolution/creationism controversy? Randy Moore and Mark Decker — both biologists at the University of Minnesota; both members of NCSE — know the answers to these questions, and in More than Darwin, they share their vast knowledge about (as the subtitle indicates) the people and places of the evolution/creationism controversy. Appropriately as well as alphabetically, they begin with Adam (“the first naturalist,” according to Linnaeus), ending with Evelle J Younger, the attorney general of California who in 1975 ruled that the state’s educational system could not “balance” its teaching of evolution by teaching creationism as well. Moore and Decker explain in their preface, “we have tried to neither condemn nor praise either ‘side’ of the controversy, nor have we attempted to reconcile the views of science and religion ... Our only goal has been to present — as best we can — an objective, interesting, accurate, and accessible description of the people and places associated with the controversy” (p xxii). They succeed admirably.
Most of the book’s 500 or so entries are short, running about 500 to 1000 words, but a few figures — Charles Darwin, of course, but also William Jennings Bryan, Clarence Darrow, Susan Epperson, the Galápagos Islands, James Hutton, Thomas Henry Huxley, Charles Lyell, and Alfred Russel Wallace — receive extended treatments. The entries are generally concise, organized, and accurate, with the exception of the usual crop of typographical errors and a few minor errors of fact. There are a few places where clarity was lamentably sacrificed for brevity: in the entry for the Kansas State Board of Education, for example, it is insufficiently clear that the board was dominated by and reclaimed from anti-evolutionists twice. The usefulness of the book as a reference work is heightened by a four-page bibliography and a competent index that, unusually but helpfully, includes important quoted phrases. (Between the entries for “Buxton Limeworks” and “Byrd, Robert,” for example, appears “Buzzword that causes a lot of negative reactions,” which was how Kathy Cox, the Georgia state superintendent of schools, described the word “evolution” in 2004.) Scattered throughout are eighty-two useful illustrations, including a number of photographs taken by Moore.
A distinct strength of More than Darwin is its coverage of the contentious legal history of the controversy, to which Moore devoted a previous book, Evolution in the Courtroom (2001). There are entries for several cases that deserve to be better known: Bishop v Aronov, Caldwell v Roseville, Crowley v Smithsonian Institution, Hendren v Campbell, Moeller v Schrenko, and Pfeifer v City of West Allis. Practically everyone of significance in the Scopes trial is allotted a separate entry, and a guide (with map) to the sites of the trial is provided. It is regrettable that McLean v Arkansas and Kitzmiller v Dover were not similarly treated, although a number of people associated with those trials, including Wendell Bird, Stephen Jay Gould, Norman Geisler, John E Jones III, and Kenneth Miller, receive their own entries. It is a minor annoyance that the proper legal citations for the cases — for example, “400 F Supp 2d 707 (MD Pa 2005)” for Kitzmiller — are not included. The entry for Selman v Cobb County fails to explain the denouement, in which the decision was vacated and the case remanded to the trial court, where a settlement was reached.
With its sturdy binding and exorbitant price ($85.00), More than Darwin is clearly intended for the library market. The University of California Press is planning to publish a paperback edition in 2009, however, which is fortunate, since the book is not simply a utilitarian reference work: it is a marvelous trove for the curious browser, who will be constantly tempted to pull the book off the shelf to read a random entry and discover a new fact or two. In addition to scientists and creationists, legislators and litigants, philosophers and poets (well, poet: Tennyson, on the strength of In Memoriam’s “Nature, red in tooth and claw”), More than Darwin addresses a number of delightfully quirky topics: Carl Akeley, the revolutionary taxidermist whose work is still on display at the American Museum of Natural history; Gertie the Dinosaur, the first animal to star in a cartoon strip; and roadside dinosaurs, such as those displayed at Dinosaur Valley State Park. Moore and Decker evidently enjoyed the chore of researching and writing the book, and their hope, expressed in the preface, that readers will “enjoy learning about the people and places of the evolution–creationism controversy” (p xxiv), is bound to be realized.
And what about those lingering questions? Well, the most controversial figure in the evolution/creationism controversy, Moore and Decker confidently state, was J Frank Norris (1877–1952), who “was indicted for a variety of felonies, including perjury, several arsons (including the burning of his own church), and murder. ... As a newspaper editor noted after the [murder] trial, ‘In Fort Worth, the 11th Commandment is “Thou shalt not mess with J Frank Norris”’” (p 271). Fans of Norris’s modern rival Kent Hovind will be pleased to know that he at least receives his own entry. The first evolution course was offered at Indiana University, at least according to the biologist David Starr Jordan (1851–1931), who taught it. And Scopes’s replacement was Raleigh Reece, described in L Sprague de Camp’s The Great Monkey Trial as “a reporter from Nashville with some teaching experience and an unblemished record of Fundamentalism” (1968: 444). Content to let the irony speak for itself, Moore and Decker add, “When Reece missed the first week of classes in the fall of 1925, his substitute was Darius Darwin” (p 298).
References
de Camp LS. 1968. The Great Monkey Trial. New York: Doubleday.
Moore R. 2001. Evolution in the Courtroom: A Reference Guide. Santa Barbara (CA): ABC-Clio.
Review: Negotiating Darwin
On both the popular and scholarly levels, the appreciation of the Roman Catholic Church’s stance with respect to the theory of biological evolution has been ambiguous. On the one hand, it is sometimes assumed that the Church that had rushed to judgment on heliocentrism in the case of Galileo would not have hesitated to pounce on a theory that both undercut a literal reading of Genesis and reduced human beings to the status of animals. On the other hand, it is well known that Roman Catholicism has not been at the forefront of organized opposition to evolution in the same way as fundamentalist Protestantism has been.
Was the Church fundamentally opposed to Darwin’s theory of descent with modification, or was it cautiously open to permitting discussion of the idea? Where along this spectrum should we expect to find the truth? Moreover, by “the Church” do we understand the Vatican and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, or Roman Catholic scholars, or the faithful in the pew? These distinctions are important to make for sorting out the degree of acceptance of evolutionary thinking within Roman Catholicism, since the response by Roman Catholic scholars and churchmen varied according to their region and to their degree of removal from the corridors of Rome. In our collective effort to defend and promote the teaching of evolution in public schools, readers of RNCSE will be well served by even a cursory reading of Negotiating Darwin. The book offers a nicely detailed elucidation of the delicate position in which the hierarchical Church found itself in the generation after Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859.
The authors of Negotiating Darwin — including the late Mariano Artigas — were among the first to study the archives of both the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition and of the Congregation of the Index. In principle it was within the jurisdiction of the Holy Office to examine and prohibit a book, with the decision being communicated to the Office of the Index for promulgation. In practice, however, it was the Congregation of the Index that handled both the examination of and the judgment about the books that had been denounced to it by church authorities. The authors examine six cases featuring Roman Catholic thinkers who were suspect of trying in varying degrees to incorporate evolutionary thinking into Roman Catholic doctrine in the generation after Darwin’s seminal work appeared. In the case of some, evolution was a relatively unimportant aspect of their thinking; with others it was central to their theological project. The principal objective of Negotiating Darwin is “to identify both the ideological and operational stance of the Church with respect to the reception of Darwinism.”
The first case studied is that of Rafaello Caverni, whose New Studies of Philosophy: Lectures to a Young Student (1877) reconciled divine creation with the active intervention of God by leaving humans out of the process of evolution. Caverni countered the predominant literalist hermeneutic by distinguishing between the divine and human aspects of Scripture. Rejecting an evolutionary theory that denied purpose, he insisted upon a theistic vision of evolution attracting the world forward by final causes. The influential Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica reviewed Caverni’s book harshly, leveling the twin objections that evolution is an atheistic and materialistic philosophy explaining matter without reference to God, and that, however much Caverni wanted to exclude humans, materialism would be the inevitable result of the incorporation of humans into the evolutionary scheme. The book was denounced and condemned. The authors note, however, that since Caverni’s title did not mention evolution, this indirect condemnation of Darwin’s theory was ultimately ineffectual.
The episode of French Dominican Dalmace Leroy offers further evidence that the Church had no official doctrine regarding evolution. Leroy published The Evolution of Organic Species in 1887, and critical reviews prompted him to issue an expanded edition under the narrower title Evolution Limited to Organic Species (1891), in which he carefully excluded Adam and Eve from consideration in the evolutionary story. The book was denounced to the Index in 1894 and Leroy agreed to retract, but with reservations. He sincerely believed that in its steadfast refusal even to consider the evolutionary preparation of the human body for reception of the infused soul, the credibility of the Roman Catholic Church was at stake in an increasingly scientific world. Leroy retracted his book, but the episode shows that there was disagreement about the subject even among the theologians of the Index. Even while forbidding the reprinting of the book, they did not publish the decree of condemnation.
The heart of Negotiating Darwin is the extensive treatment of the case of John Zahm (1851–1921). A priest in the Holy Cross Order and Professor of Physics and Chemistry at the University of Notre Dame, Zahm argued in Evolution and Dogma (1896) for the harmonization of evolutionary theory with Roman Catholic doctrine. Zahm’s grasp of contemporary evolutionary theory was remarkable, particularly in his understanding that Darwinism was not equivalent to evolution but only one of numerous attempts that had been made to explain the modus operandi of biological change. Recognizing the paucity of fossil transitional forms, Zahm noted that Darwin himself had acknowledged the current incompleteness of the geological record. Zahm was confident that although the production of variation on which selection works was not yet understood, understanding would eventually arrive. He critically reviewed the controversy about Lamarck’s theory of the transmission of acquired characteristics, concluding that a comprehensive theory of evolution was not yet attained.
Zahm was well aware of the baggage Darwinism carried in being associated with atheism, and he was alert to the evolutionary controversies raging in Europe. However, he retained a serene confidence that revealed theology could validly be integrated with progressive science.
The Vatican’s attention to Zahm’s book must be read in light of Pope Leo XIII’s campaign against “Americanism.” New World political values were often regarded with suspicion by conservative 19th-century Europeans. American Catholics who had adopted the values of freedom of the press, liberty of conscience, and the spirit of free scientific inquiry were less likely to follow Vatican dictates meekly. The appearance of the French and Italian editions of Evolution and Dogma provoked the Congregation of the Index to issue an injunction against further publication and distribution, although apparently this was never enforced. Zahm was a faithful Catholic, and when friends in Rome warned him that the book was about to be placed on the Index, he immediately wrote to the publisher of the Italian edition to slow its distribution. Convinced that the truth for which he had worked would in due time be manifest, he had made his point and was content to follow the orders of the church he loved and served. The decree of condemnation was not published, and Zahm never issued a retraction.
In the remaining three cases examined in this book, evolution played a less direct role. Geremia Bonomelli, Bishop of Cremona, was quite taken with Zahm’s book, adding an appendix discussing evolution to his own Seguiamo la raggione (Let Us Follow Reason, 1898). Bonomelli’s enthusiastic endorsement led the Index to examine Zahm’s thought more closely, and Bonomelli’s book was a casualty. Because he was already controversial for his proposal that the Vatican should recognize the new Italian state, Bonomelli believed that a voluntary retraction of the evolutionary appendix would be in his and the church’s best interest. Bishop John Hedley of England came under fire for favorably reviewing Zahm’s book, and he issued a letter of retraction in the English Catholic magazine The Tablet. Also in England, lay scholar St George Jackson Mivart, author of The Genesis of Species (1871), was condemned not for his evolutionary views but for his challenge to traditional doctrines about sin and punishment.
Rome never formulated an explicit condemnation of evolution as a doctrine and seems to have taken a rather pragmatic approach to the issue. The debates internal to the Congregation of the Index reflect a general concern for rejecting evolution when applied to the human body, but the only condemnation ever issued was internal, the decree was not published. None of Darwin’s books was placed on the Index, nor were any of Huxley’s, Spencer’s, or Haeckel’s. The six cases under review all involved books written by Roman Catholics who had attracted ecclesiastical attention, presumably because their works had greater potential to disturb the life of the Church. Participants on both sides appear to have remembered the Galileo episode, and the Church was careful not to overstep its bounds.
It is hard to find serious fault with this book, both for the meticulousness of its scholarship and for its engaging style. It might have been useful to pursue the history into the 1930s, but the authors have wisely sacrificed breadth for depth. Historians will enjoy its meticulous scholarship, and even non-historians will find this a useful book, as it offers sound historical perspective on a foundationally important and often misconstrued period in the history of the relationship between ecclesiastical authority and the social osmosis of evolutionary theory.
RNCSE 29 (2)
Click "Print Edition Contents" for list of articles in the print edition.
Print Edition Contents: 29 (2)
NEWS
- Creationism in Brunswick County
Anton Mates
A school district in southern North Carolina considers "equal time" proposals. - Implementing Louisiana's Anti-Evolution Law
Joshua Rosenau
The Louisiana Science Education Act is law, and now it must be implemented. - A Furor over Creationism at the Royal Society
Glenn Branch
A science educator was embroiled in controversy over remarks about creationism in the classroom. - The Latest on Expelled
Eugenie C Scott
The movie is getting publicity again, but as one of the worst films of 2008. - Victory over "Weaknesses" in Texas
Glenn Branch
Language about "strengths and weaknesses" of "controversial" scientific theories was dropped from the state standards. But other changes raise concerns. - Updates
News from Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma,Canada, and the Netherlands.
NCSE NEWS
- News from the Membership
What our members are doing to support evolution and oppose pseudoscience wherever the need arises.
MEMBERS' PAGES
- Revisiting the Creation/Evolution Continuum
A reminder that there is a range of perspectives. - Books: Science and Religion Redux
These books explore the relationship between modern science and religious faith. - NCSE On the Road
Check the calendar here for NCSE speakers.
SPECIAL FEATURE: MEMBERS' ROUNDTABLE
- Winning Their Hearts and Minds: Who Should
Speak for Evolution?
Daryl P Domning
Domning suggests that scientists who profess religious faith would help more people to accept evolution. - Response to "Winning Their Hearts and Minds"
Sheldon F Gottlieb
Gottlieb acknowledges the tactical advantage in Domning's proposal, but worries that this approach may weaken scientific literacy in the longer run. - Communicating Evolutionary Science to a Religious Public
Keith B Miller
It is important — for both scientists and the general public — to recognize how science interacts with the values and beliefs of broader culture, and that includes religious belief. - Keeping Evolution Education in Perspective: A Response to Daryl Domning
Erik B Pietrowicz
It is the public school teacher who is at the forefront of this issue. How might Domning's approach play out in the classroom? - Rejoinder to Comments
Daryl P Domning
Reflections on responses at the roundtable.
SPECIAL FEATURE
- People & Places: The Temple of Serapis
Randy Moore
Charles Lyell correctly inferred past geologic processes by observation at this famous site on a peninsula that juts into the Mediterranean just west of Naples.
BOOK REVIEWS
- Thank God for Evolution! — A Response to a RNCSE Review
Michael Dowd
The author discusses the aims of the book. - Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution
by Karl W Giberson
Reviewed by Denis O Lamoureux - Render Unto Darwin: Philosophical Aspects of the Christian Right's Crusade against Science
by James H Fetzer
Reviewed by Keith M Parsons - Charles Darwin
by Michael Ruse
Reviewed by Doren A Recker - Back to Darwin: A Richer Account of Evolution
edited by John B Cobb Jr
Reviewed by Timothy Shanahan - Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution
by Denis O Lamoureux
Reviewed by Stephen J Godfrey
A Furor over Creationism at the Royal Society
The director of education for the Royal Society of London, Michael Reiss, resigned from his position on September 16, 2008, in the wake of a controversy occasioned by his recent remarks on creationism — even though Reiss, a biologist, accepts evolution, recognizes that creationism lacks any scientific legitimacy, and believes that students ought to be told, when the subject arises, that creationism has no scientific basis.
Reiss's remarks were apparently offered during the British Association for the Advancement of Science's Festival of Science, which took place September 6–11, 2008, in Liverpool; he subsequently posted a corresponding essay, "Science lessons should tackle creationism and intelligent design," on the Guardian's science blog on September 11, 2008. In the latter, Reiss posed the question, "What should science teachers do when faced with students who are creationists?" and answered that "when teaching evolution, there is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have (hardly a revolutionary idea in science teaching) and doing one's best to have a genuine discussion."
Reiss added, "The word 'genuine' doesn't mean that creationism or intelligent design deserve equal time." He was also careful to note that whether such a discussion would be appropriate depends "on the comfort of the teacher in dealing with such issues and the make-up of the student body," adding, "I don't believe that such teaching is easy." Nevertheless, he insisted, "I do believe in taking seriously and respectfully the concerns of students who do not accept the theory of evolution, while still introducing them to it. While it is unlikely that this will help students who have a conflict between science and their religious beliefs to resolve the conflict, good science teaching can help students to manage it — and to learn more science."
Unfortunately, the content of Reiss's message was distorted and sensationalized in the British media. For example, the story in the Times of London (2008 Sep 12) was headlined "Leading scientist urges teaching of creationism in schools," and began, "Creationism should be taught in science classes as a legitimate point of view, according to the Royal Society, putting the august science body on a collision course with the Government"; the Telegraph's story (2008 Sep 11) was similarly headlined "Creationism should be taught in science classes, says expert," and subheaded, "The theory of creationism should be taught alongside evolution in school science lessons, a leading biologist and education expert has said."
The Royal Society observed in a September 12, 2008, press release that "The Royal Society is opposed to creationism being taught as science," citing the 2006 Interacademy Panel statement (see RNCSE 2006 Jul/Aug; 26 [4]: 13–6) on the teaching of evolution, to which the Royal Society is a signatory. It also quoted a clarification from Reiss: "Creationism has no scientific basis. However, when young people ask questions about creationism in science classes, teachers need to be able to explain to them why evolution and the Big Bang are scientific theories but they should also take the time to explain how science works and why creationism has no scientific basis."
Nevertheless, there was a quick outcry from a number of British scientists. Richard Roberts, a member of the Royal Society and a Nobel Prize winner, was quoted in the Guardian (2008 Sep 14) as saying, "I think it is outrageous that this man is suggesting that creationism should be discussed in a science classroom. It is an incredible idea and I am drafting a letter to other Nobel laureates — which would be sent to the Royal Society — to ask that Reiss be made to stand down." And Roberts indeed sent a letter endorsed by his fellow laureates Harold Kroto and John Sulston to the Royal Society, complaining about Reiss's remarks as reported.
Part of the outcry centered on the fact that, in addition to being a biologist and professor of science education, Reiss is also a clergyman, ordained in the Church of England. Richard Dawkins told the Guardian (2008 Sep 14), "A clergyman in charge of education for the country's leading scientific organisation — it's a Monty Python sketch," and Roberts's letter to the Royal Society commented, "We gather Professor Reiss is a clergyman, which in itself is very worrisome. Who on earth thought that he would be an appropriate Director of Education, who could be expected to answer questions about the differences between science and religion in a scientific, reasoned way?"
Subsequently, in a September 16, 2008, letter to New Scientist, Dawkins distanced himself from the call for Reiss's ouster, describing Roberts's letter's complaint about Reiss's clerical status as "a little too close to a witch-hunt for my squeamish taste," characterizing his Monty Python comparison as "a little uncharitable," and commenting, "Although I disagree with him, what he actually said at the British Association is not obviously silly like creationism itself, nor is it a self-evidently inappropriate stance for the Royal Society to take." (He also mentioned "Eugenie Scott, whose National Center for Science Education is doing splendid work in fighting the creationist wingnuts in America.")
Dawkins's limited defense notwithstanding, the Royal Society announced Reiss's resignation on September 16, 2008. According to a press release, "Some of Professor Michael Reiss's recent comments, on the issue of creationism in schools, while speaking as the Royal Society's Director of Education, were open to misinterpretation. While it was not his intention, this has led to damage to the Society's reputation. As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the Society, he will step down immediately as Director of Education."
It wasn't only scientists who were critical of Reiss's remarks as reported. After Reiss's resignation, Phil Willis, a Member of Parliament who chairs the Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, expressed satisfaction with the result, telling the Times of London (2008 Sep 17), "I hope the society will now stop burying its head and start taking on creationism." Previously Wills told the Times (2008 Sep 16), "I was horrified to hear these views and I reject them totally. They are a step too far and they fly in the face of what science is about. I think if his [Professor Reiss's] views are as mentioned they may be incompatible with his position."
Not all members of the British scientific community were critical of Reiss. After his resignation, Roland Jackson, chief executive of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, told BBC News (2008 Sep 16) that his departure was a "real loss," adding, "I was at the actual discussion and what I heard him say, however it has been reported, was essentially the position advocated by the Royal Society." Robert Winston, professor of science and society at Imperial College London and a distinguished medical scientist and science popularizer, lamented, "This is not a good day for the reputation of science or scientists."
Paul Nurse, a member of the Royal Society and Nobel laureate who did not sign the Roberts letter, took a somewhat intermediate position, telling Nature (in a piece published on-line under the dreadful headline "Creationism stir fries Reiss"; 2008 Sep 17), "It does not matter what someone's religious beliefs are as long as he does the job properly. The issue for me here is his competency in the job. I only saw the media coverage of his speech, but it does not look as though he handled it well. Because creationism in the classroom is such a sensitive subject, you have to be very careful and very clear about what you say."
Across the Atlantic, Leslie S Jones of Valdosta State University, who coedited a recent anthology, Teaching about Scientific Origins: Taking Account of Creationism (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2007; reviewed in RNCSE 2008 May/Jun; 28 [3]: 23–5), with Reiss, expressed shock at the events. She told Nature (on-line; 2008 Sep 17), "Michael has a rare blend of transdisciplinary credentials that give him critical insight into the social controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution. He has never advocated the teaching of creationism."
A subsequent editorial in Nature (2008; 445: 431–2) argued:
Those who argue that allowing discussion of creationism in a science class gives it legitimacy, and that students who ask about it should be firmly directed to take their questions elsewhere, are misguided.
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California, and a long-time advocate for the teaching of evolution, points out that in the real world, any such shut-up-and-take-it-elsewhere response from the teacher will inevitably be perceived by the student (and his or her classmates) as a humiliating personal putdown. It will obstruct rather than encourage enquiry and understanding. It will also invite complaints from outraged parents.
What is more, it will squander what experienced educators like to call "a teachable moment". All too often, that moment is the one opportunity that a school has to engage resistant students and introduce them to what science has to say.
Reiss is returning to his position of Professor of Science Education at the Institute of Education at the University of London.
Communicating Evolutionary Science to a Religious Public
First, I want to endorse enthusiastically Daryl Domning's plea to those in the scientific community who are theists, and especially to those of us who are members of the Christian community. It is essential to the advancement of the public's understanding and acceptance of modern science (particularly evolutionary science) that we articulate that science to the faith communities of which we are a part. The presumption of "warfare" between science and religious faith perpetuates erroneous understandings of the nature and content of science. Such misconceptions erect completely unnecessary barriers to the embrace of science by a substantial portion of the population, and turn public science education into a forum for cultural warfare. When people of faith reject the central theories of modern science because of a false perception that those theories conflict with their faith, they not only deprive science of vital public support, but also deprive it of many bright enquiring minds in the future.
In many cases, people reject evolution (and other unifying theories within the historical natural sciences) as much because of popularly held misconceptions about the nature of science itself as because of any perceived theological conflict. The roots of the science/ faith conflict are often embedded in false notions that are widely held within our culture and impact general public science literacy. It is these very misconceptions that are exploited by anti-evolution advocates. For example, theories are often viewed as merely unsubstantiated guesses, rather than as the unifying concepts that give our observations coherence and meaning. Theories within the historical sciences, in particular, are seen as being inherently untestable. Many people conceive of science as simply an encyclopedic accumulation of unchanging observational "facts". Thus, the dynamic nature of science with the continual revision of theoretical constructs becomes for them evidence of the fleeting validity of scientific "truth". The claim that modern science is based on an atheistic philosophy that denies the existence of anything beyond the material is commonly built upon the background of these other false notions of science. The result is both predictable and preventable.
As Domning states, being public advocates for the compatibility of evolutionary science and religious faith is not about injecting religion into science. Far from it! It is simply presenting the true face of science, which is practiced by individuals representing a very wide range of theistic and non-theistic views. The methods of the natural sciences are limited to understanding the natural world and its history in terms of natural cause-and-effect processes, a limitation frequently described by the term "methodological naturalism". Science, as a method of inquiry about the natural world, can make no claims about the existence or non-existence of God, or of any supernatural entity. Atheism is neither an assumption nor a conclusion of science. Scientific investigation is a trans-cultural and religiously neutral enterprise, and is therefore universally accessible. However, while science as a discipline is religiously neutral, individual scientists are not. We each live out our scientific vocations within a broader context.
A view of science that recognizes its interaction with the values and beliefs of the broader culture need not be left at the public school door. Presenting the historical development of scientific theories in the classroom is a very effective way of communicating to students why certain theories have come to be widely accepted by the scientific community. Such historical accounts will of necessity display the roles (both positive and negative) played by culture, religious faith, philosophy, and even individual personalities in the shaping of modern science. History also reveals how new powerful explanatory theories arise and displace previously strongly held views. It reveals the interesting, dynamic, and very human processes involved in advancing our understanding of the natural world. Such an approach to teaching science also provides a legitimate context in which teachers and students can address the ethical and social dimensions of the application of scientific knowledge.
Science is not learned and applied in some culturally and religiously sterile environment. The motivations that drive us to understand the natural world and to apply that knowledge for the good of others and the world are part and parcel of our most deeply held philosophical and religious commitments. Why should those commitments be hidden when we communicate our passion for science to others? People will more easily recognize that science has something valuable for them when they see it embodied in those who share their deeply held faith commitments. A consequence of this more human face to science may just be a reinvigoration of scientific interest in our schools and in our nation.
I discuss these various public misunderstandings at length in my "Countering public misconceptions about the nature of evolutionary science" (Southeastern Biology 2005; 52: 415–27).
Creationism in Brunswick County
Brunswick County is a largely rural county of about 75 000 people in the southern tip of North Carolina, but it drew national attention in the fall of 2008 when its school board considered adding creationism to the science curriculum. (For a brief report, see RNCSE 2008 Sep–Dec; 28 [5–6]: 4–8.)
According to the Wilmington Star-News (2008 Sep 16), the controversy began at the September 16, 2008, board meeting, when Joel Fanti, a chemical engineer and local parent, condemned the teaching of evolution as "fact" rather than "theory". Fanti also made a curious argument: "I wasn't here 2 million years ago ... If evolution is so slow, why don't we see anything evolving now?" He volunteered to teach creationism himself, to audience applause.
Board chair Shirley Babson responded that evolution was a required subject, although she personally rejected it. She was uncertain whether creationism could legally be added to the science curriculum, but said, "if we can do it, I think we ought to do it." All other board members present also voiced their support for teaching creationism, and superintendent Katie McGee agreed to research the question of its legality. The board's attorney suggested that it might be possible to add creationism to the curriculum as long as evolution was still taught.
The board's receptiveness to the idea of explicitly mandating creationism may seem surprising to longtime observers of the anti-evolutionist movement. Since 1987's Edwards v Aguillard decision prohibited exactly this sort of policy as unconstitutional, most creationism activists have chosen more indirect tactics, such as "intelligent design" or — since Kitzmiller v Dover — "teaching the controversy" or "strengths and weaknesses".
But several members of Brunswick County's school board — in particular Babson, Jimmy Hobbs, and Ray Gilbert — have consistently supported the promotion of particular religious viewpoints on school grounds. For instance, in 2006, Hobbs, Babson, and Gilbert proposed to let Gideons International distribute Bibles in county high schools. (State Port Pilot 2006 March 21) When it was pointed out that Wiccans, Pastafarians, and other religious groups would also have to be permitted to distribute their literature, the proposition was tabled indefinitely (Star-News 2006 May 5).
The next year, Hobbs and Babson pushed for more parental control over the contents of school libraries, expressing concern that Harry Potter's inclusion in school libraries promoted Wiccanism and would lead children to practice witchcraft and animal sacrifice (Star-News 2007 Sep 21). It does not appear that they were successful in changing library policy.
Presumably Hobbs was referring to this history of failed attempts to promote particular religious viewpoints in the Brunswick County schools when he said at the September meeting, "It's really a disgrace for the state school board to impose evolution on our students without teaching creationism. The law says we can't have Bibles in schools, but we can have evolution, of the atheists" (Star-News 2008 Sep 16).
REACTIONS TO THE PROPOSAL
When state education officials were interviewed in the days following the meeting, they were clear on the law. North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson said that schools are not allowed to teach creationism as science, and that those that did so are liable to be sued. Edd Dunlap and Tracey Greggs, the chiefs of the science and social studies sections in the state department of public instruction, agreed. Referencing both Edwards v Aguillard and Kitzmiller v Dover, Dunlap explained that creationism and "intelligent design"could be covered in an elective course in religion or philosophy, but could not be taught in science or any other required course, nor could it be taught as fact. Greggs added that creationism could also be included in history class, but would have to be presented alongside other religious perspectives and not specifically promoted (Star-News 2008 Sep 29).
Opinion within the local community was predictably divided. Pro-evolution sentiment was strong; concerned citizens contacted the district, wrote letters to local newspapers, and contacted both NCSE and the Evolution Learning Community at the University of North Carolina's campus in nearby Wilmington, where by coincidence, Richard Leakey was giving a talk on human evolution. Phillip Johnson arrived a week later, at the invitation of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, to discuss "intelligent design".
Local church officials, such as Mary Hart and Father Hector La Chappelle of St Brendan the Navigator Roman Catholic Church in Shallotte, vocally opposed the board's plans (Star-News 2008 Sep 22), while other religious figures supported it just as staunchly. At a forum a month before the November 2008 election, school board candidates were quizzed on their opinions on the issue. The district received letters from as far away as the state of Washington, according to Babson, and the proposal was discussed on numerous national blogs. The high level of nationwide interest in the affair is due largely to the diligent coverage of the Star-News in nearby Wilmington. One of its reporters, Ana Ribeiro, wrote half a dozen articles on the board's proposal, the opinions of board members and candidates, reactions from the community, and the relevant educational laws and policies of North Carolina. (The latest of these, from November 6, 2008, and containing links to the newspaper's previous coverage, is available on-line at http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20081106/ARTICLES/81106023.)
RESOLUTION
Perhaps concerned by the attention, the board canceled its monthly meeting for October 2008. Around that time, Babson noted to reporters that, given the critical response and legal advice the board had received, it would probably not try to teach creationism after all — although, she indicated, she would still like to see that happen someday (Star-News 2008 Sep 29).
The next meeting took place on November 6, 2008, shortly after the election. (Pro-creationist Ray Gilbert, incidentally, was unseated in that election by Bud Thorsen, a challenger who was opposed to teaching creationism in science class.) Addressing the board, Fanti said he recognized that creationism could not be added to the science curriculum and suggested that it be taught in a social studies class such as world history instead, alongside other religious belief systems such as the Indian and the Egyptian. At the same time, he argued, the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory should be discussed in science class. The "weaknesses" Fanti raised were standard creationist fare; he invoked the standard microevolution/ macroevolution distinction and also asked, "how does evolution propose that mankind came into being when the [sic] particles to human beings has never been observed nor can it be proven?"(North Brunswick Pilot 2008 Nov 12).
The board was unwilling to comment on the issue this time around; the standing members said they needed more information before discussing it again. Shirley Babson requested a written copy of Fanti's suggestions, but also said after the meeting that she knew of no curricula that challenged evolution; however, she did not rule out the possibility of teaching about creationism in social science classes.
On the whole, recent developments in Brunswick have been positive. The board's enthusiasm for teaching creationism has apparently cooled significantly; to judge by their previous activities, tabling discussion of an issue "until more information is available" is generally a prelude to discarding it entirely. With one of the board's strongest supporters of creationism on his way out, and a strong pro-science message provided by local citizens, state officials, and the board's own legal advisors, it is to be hoped that good science education in Brunswick will no longer be threatened by the very body in charge of ensuring its provision.
Implementing Louisiana's Anti-Evolution Law
On January 15, 2009, Louisiana's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education adopted a policy about what types of supplementary classroom materials will, and will not, be allowable under the Louisiana Science Education Act. While the policy echoes the LSEA's requirement that such materials "not promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion," a provision that "materials that teach creationism or intelligent design or that advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind shall be prohibited for use in science class" was deleted, according to a report from the Associated Press (2009 Jan 15).
Enacted in June 2008 over the protests of scientists and educators across the state and around the country, the LSEA (enacted as Louisiana Revised Statutes 17:285.1) provides:
A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board unless otherwise prohibited by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The new policy governs the way in which BESE will consider such supplementary material.
It was clear from the outset that evolution was in the LSEA's sights. The original draft of the law specifically identified "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning" as controversial subjects, and called on state and local education administrators to "endeavor to assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies." In its final version, these topics are no longer described as controversial, but they are still specifically mentioned. And the Baton Rouge Advocate (2008 Apr 19) editorially recognized, "it seems clear that the supporters of this legislation are seeking a way to get creationism ... into science classrooms." (For background, see RNCSE 2008 Mar/Apr; 28 [2]: 8–11; 2008 Jul/Aug; 28 [4]: 4–10.)
A committee of veteran educators and scientists assembled by the state department of education began drafting the policy to implement the LSEA in fall 2008 which was submitted to the BESE's Student/School Performance Support Committee on December 2, 2008. The Associated Press (2009 Jan 8) reported, "Proposed for discussion at the December meeting were requirements that any information in the supplemental material be 'supported by empirical evidence.' The proposed language also said religious beliefs 'shall not be advanced under the guise of encouraging critical thinking' and that materials 'that teach creationism or intelligent design or that advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind shall be prohibited in science classes.'"
Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University, coauthor with Paul R Gross of Creationism's Trojan Horse (revised edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), and a member of NCSE's board of directors, praised the December version of the policy for ensuring that religion would not be taught in the public schools. But Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum, a religious right organization that vociferously supported the LSEA, was unhappy with it, telling the Associated Press, "I would think that it left religious neutrality and took a tone of religious hostility. Or at least it could be interpreted by some to have done that." Action on the policy was not taken immediately, but instead deferred until January 2009.
On January 8, 2009, a revised draft was posted in advance of the committee's January 13 meeting. The provision that "religious beliefs shall not be advanced under the guise of encouraging critical thinking" was removed, and a provision forbidding consideration of the "religious or non-religious beliefs and affiliations" of the authors of supplementary material was added. The procedure for challenging supplementary material also became more complicated. Complaints would need to cite the problems with the material, school districts would be notified of challenges, and a hearing would need to be held at which the district, the complainant, and "any interested parties" would have "adequate time to present their arguments and information and to offer rebuttals."
Forrest decried these revisions in a January 12, 2009, letter to the BESE, objecting that the policy was "altered in ways that are detrimental to the education of Louisiana students" (see p 6). She called for the provision regarding religious beliefs under the guise of critical thinking to be restored, explained that "[t]o determine quality, acceptability, and bias, scientists and teachers customarily and quite appropriately examine the source of instructional material," and described the new procedures for challenging supplementary material as "unclear, ill-conceived, and onerous," adding, "The instructions are vague and confusing, and they unnecessarily complicate what should be a straightforward decision based on the professional expertise of [Louisiana Department of Education] staff."
At the committee's meeting on January 13, 2009, the LSEA's chief sponsor, Ben Nevers (D–District 12), and Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum successfully lobbied for the removal of the section of the policy that provided, "Materials that teach creationism or intelligent design or that advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind shall be prohibited for use in science classes." The provision forbidding consideration of the beliefs and affiliations of the authors of supplementary material was also removed, according to a report from the Associated Press (2009 Jan 13).
With the adoption of the policy by the BESE on January 15, 2009, it is still unclear what will happen. Steve Monaghan, the president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, told WAFB television (2009 Jan 13) in Baton Rouge, "The time spent on this issue may be in total excess of what the problem was because we don't believe there was a problem in the science classroom anyway": teachers in his organization have not complained about the science education materials at their disposals and presumably would not seek to add supplementary materials. Civil liberties organizations have already expressed their readiness to challenge attempts to teach religion in the guise of science in Louisiana's public schools.
In the meantime, the Lafayette Independent Weekly (2009 Jan 12) worried about the effect of the LSEA and the policy on Louisiana's reputation. "For many of us interested and active in economic development and hopeful in a newly resurgent Louisiana ... this is not good news," Steve May wrote. "This attempt to pollute the teaching of science in our public schools with religious dogma does more longterm damage to ourselves than all the painful headlines about Edwin Edwards, David Duke or 'Dollar' Bill Jefferson combined, because the damage is far more lasting. Is this the message of educational ignorance that we want to send prospective employers considering locating or relocating to Louisiana?"
Significantly, creationists revealed their understanding of the policy as adopted in letters to the editors of their local newspapers. The Baton Rouge Advocate, for example, printed a letter commending the BESE for "their efforts to bring God back into the public schools with promoting creationism as an alternative to the hoax of evolution currently taught" (2009 Jan 28), while the Monroe News-Star printed a similar letter thanking "our legislators and governor for taking a stand for God. Our teachers will be able to teach evolution is only a theory. By teaching the option of creationism, I pray our children will realize God created them" (2009 Jan 20).
The Associated Press (2009 Jan 25) analyzed the situation, concluding, "There are disagreements on what exactly will result from policy language the state education board recently adopted for teaching science in Louisiana public schools, but one thing looks pretty clear: sooner or later Louisiana is going back to court in a case that will look like a descendant of the 1987 argument over 'scientific creationism.'" As always, NCSE is working with its allies — including the ACLU of Louisiana and the Louisiana Coalition for Science, a grassroots group recently founded by Barbara Forrest — to prepare for whatever action may be necessary.
Keeping Evolution Education in Perspective: A Response to Daryl Domning
While Domning raises many interesting points, the one he referred to as the "Global War on Theism" resonated with a concern I have had for some time. Specifically, how can we teach students and the general public that science (and the field of evolution in particular) is not religiously motivated, when many of today's most prominent evolutionary biologists actively intertwine the two in order to promote their theological worldview, and, as discussed later, when many educators share that mindset?
At a fundamental philosophical level, the fact that the opinions expressed by those exemplified by Dawkins are in opposition to the majority is immaterial. Let us remind ourselves that science is a systematic study of the natural world and the methodology used to do so. So, science is a study of nature, and theology deals primarily with the supernatural. Therefore, science cannot address theological concerns such as the existence or nonexistence of any supernatural being. As Domning writes, "one of our central arguments [is] the theological neutrality of good science." This precludes the use of science to promote any theological worldview, from wherever along the spectrum one finds oneself.
However, it would be naïve to stop here, as if the issue may be put to rest simply by invoking Gould's concept of non-overlapping magisteria. The public is not generally concerned with making the distinction between scientific evidence and religious belief. In practice, then, the nature of the theological opinions that are commonly associated with evolutionary biology is important, as they can end up driving a false wedge between religion and science in general. Thus, evolution education (and religion?) suffers as atheism and evolutionism become synonymous in the public mind.
We can all think of examples of theologically inflammatory behavior by scientists in the spotlight. Consider the cover of David Sloan Wilson's Evolution for Everyone, which puts a halo over the old Darwin monkey–man caricature. While this makes for light humor, it can also come across as subtle mockery of those who do not understand evolution, particularly those who doubt evolution based on a perceived conflict with religious belief.
At the Evolution 2008 conference in Minneapolis, I attended many productive discussions and presentations about teaching evolution in the classroom. However, the content of one discussion was particularly worrisome. The topic it attempted to address was "When religion and science clash in the mind of a student, how should the instructor respond?" In other words, if a student refuses to learn in any subject based on personal beliefs, regardless of whether or not they accept the validity of the material, what then are the instructor's responsibilities and/or restrictions toward addressing the student outside the classroom?
The problem in this discussion arose in the wording of the dialog and by extension the attitudes of the discussants. The initial question very quickly deteriorated from being one of ethics and pedagogy into asking if a student refuses to accept evolution, "... can I say no, you're wrong?" and "How can I get them to believe?" I found this shift in thought to be highly disturbing. Education is not about forcing a belief, and antagonism is not an effective educational tool. It serves only to alienate students, and by putting them on the defensive perpetuates their distrust of science, which, in turn, is counterproductive in improving scientific literacy. As another discussant pointed out, the goal is not for all students to accept evolution by the end of their first semester in college — developing understanding often takes time.
This can be extended to say that the goal in the forum of public opinion is not for people to abandon their religious beliefs in favor of evolution (or any other scientific theory), but to promote a better understanding of science. Perpetuating the false dichotomy of science or religion — but not both — can exacerbate the problem and lead to the opposite of the effect we desire.
Rejoinder to Comments on "Winning Their Hearts and Minds: Who Should Speak for Evolution?"
Should theistic evolutionists take the lead in publicly defending evolution? Shelly Gottlieb gets to the heart of the matter when he says that the answer depends on "what one is trying to accomplish". However, I do not fully agree with the choices he offers. One possibility he proposes is "to demonstrate to the public at large that it is possible to be a 'believer' and still 'believe in' (as opposed to accept based on evidence) evolution"; the other is "educating the 'undecided' group to the importance and power of natural explanations of natural phenomena."
Instead, what I would like to demonstrate to the public is that one can be a religious believer and still accept evolution based on evidence (as opposed to "belief"). Now, if that somehow helps convince them of the power of natural explanations, fine; but that's not my main goal, nor is it necessarily very relevant to the creation-evolution dispute. As Erik Pietrowicz correctly notes, "The public is not generally concerned with making the distinction between scientific evidence and religious belief." Generally, they want to make sense of their existence and find meaning in their lives. Fundamentalists offer them explanations that cannot be reconciled with modern science, and rubbing that fact in just makes them more uncomfortable. If we see our job (especially outside the classroom) as only being to "educate" the public about the ways of science, we are ignoring what our audience sees as important. That is what I would call self-defeating. Evolutionists have been doing that in debates with creationists for forty years and more — and look where it has gotten us.
Gottlieb argues that theistic evolution "opens science to the criticism that science is not really free of the supernatural but that it tolerates (respects) supernaturalism." Actually, this should not describe science, but rather scientists (except for the openly intolerant ones). As Keith Miller says, "while science as a discipline is religiously neutral, individual scientists are not. We each live out our scientific vocations within a broader context." We were all born human before we were trained in science, and we did not check our humanity at the door of the laboratory.We did not forfeit our right to believe in the supernatural, or our civic duty to respect those who do. If we had done so, we would be less than fully human, and even more alienated from our non-scientist fellow citizens. (We Catholics used to have a saying: "Error has no rights." Fortunately, it was abandoned as church policy almost half a century ago, when a different view prevailed: "People have rights, even people who are in error!")
If, on the contrary, we want to communicate with the public and persuade them (and we have to do this to make our schools safe for science), then we need to use that non-scientist part of ourselves, along with our scientific training. We who are believers need to be role models who prove the theological neutrality of science, by showing that believers can be just as comfortable with Darwinism as atheists are. And when fundamentalists question the quality of our belief, we have to be able to defend it, along with our approach to interpreting the Bible and our overall worldview.
Pietrowicz poses the related question: If and when religion and science clash in the minds of students, how should the instructor respond? Certainly not by demanding that they "believe in" evolution in order to pass (though they can be required to learn the evidence presented even if they do not buy the interpretation). But I see nothing wrong with also saying something like "Hey, I'm a Christian too, but I don't have a problem with evolution. If you want, we can discuss that sometime outside of class." In many cases, that would pique the curiosity of students on both sides of the issue, and might lead to a fruitful, even enjoyable off-campus bull session. The key is to avoid pugnacity, defensiveness, or putting students down: respect really pays off and is part of what we should be teaching, in addition to the science.
In such a conversation about beliefs (with questioning students or committed fundamentalists), most scientists who are not believers will quickly find themselves tongue-tied, reduced to sputtering impotence or insufferable arrogance — neither response will be very persuasive. Not all fundamentalists are ignorant, or intellectual pushovers. The sincere ones have serious concerns that deserve serious responses. Explaining how science differs from religion may be a good start, but it does not get us all the way to explaining the meaning of life. Scientists who are unwilling or unable to go beyond science in order to defend science must face the fact that they cannot reach many of the people who need to be reached.
Committed atheists, in particular, have to decide which they care about more: making our schools safe for evolution, or ridding the world of religion. The latter, whether desirable or not, is emphatically not a prerequisite to achieving the former; and in any case, trying to do both at once just inflames the controversy and alienates religionists who are the atheists' potential allies in supporting good science. This does not help the cause of science education.
Response to "Winning their Hearts and Minds"
In the religiously created, artificial creationism/evolution controversy, as in every social political conflict, there are basically three groups: the hard-core pro (non-theistic and theistic evolutionists), the hard-core con, and those in the middle consisting of the undecided and the apathetic — those who do not really care one way or the other. To convince people to side with a specific point of a view, arguments are framed by debaters not for the hard core but for the middle. One extreme will use information presented to support conclusions it already held while the other extreme tends to disregard proffered arguments.
When issues involve religion problems arise because one enters the world of belief — a world in which empirical data have little to no meaning when they conflict with beliefs — unsubstantiated beliefs substitute for facts and are considered to be facts. For this discussion, “religion” will refer primarily to Christianity (with a few changes reflecting other traditions, it could also refer to Judaism and Islam).
There can be no questioning of the axioms of the fundamentalists — there is a God and the Bible is the inerrant word of that God. Those opposed to science and evolution make certain declarations of the supremacy of belief and biblical inerrancy. This position is clearly stated in Biology for Christian Schools, second edition, a high-school level textbook by William S Pinkston Jr (Greenville [SC]: Bob Jones University Press,1991):
Christians who try to accept evolutionary theory when the Bible clearly teaches Creationism are saying that a section of the Bible is not true. The question of whether the Bible or human speculation is true then becomes a matter of choice, open for debate. Dr Bob Jones, Sr has rightly said: “Whatever the Bible says is so. Whatever man says may or may not be so.” This is the only consistent Christian position. All scientific facts and interpretation of those facts, therefore, must fit into the model prescribed by the Word of God. A scientific “fact” that does not fit into the model outlined in the Bible is either in error (and therefore not really a fact) or is being misinterpreted.
The above quote demonstrates that fundamentalist theists have successfully framed all science-versus-religion (SvR) discussions in such a way that they are in a no-lose situation; empirical data and reason are meaningless. Thus, speaking to a fundamentalist theist could (would) be futile.
Atheistic scientists claiming that God does not exist and who use science and/or evolution to buttress their arguments may well be absolutely correct, but those arguments cannot penetrate the unsubstantiated reality of fundamentalist religionists. Further, such arguments tend to confuse those who occupy the broad middle, who tend to be scientifically uneducated and who retain some ties, irrespective of how loose, to a concept of a supernatural being and world. Thus, fundamentalist religionists have an inherent advantage in SvR debates in that they frame the bounds of the debate and they speak with an absolute certainty while scientists speak in tentative terms. In fact, using evolutionary data for disproving the existence of God — rather than just for showing there is an alternative explanation for life on earth based on natural laws that does not require the concept of a God — may be going beyond the boundaries of the data and, among other things, serves the function of enhancing the inherent resistance of fundamentalists — even many non-fundamentalist believers — to scientific and evolutionary thought. Atheistic arguments and individuals may move some people but they could alienate others. This is especially true in the US where there is an additional level of complexity: the involvement of unconscionable pandering politicians and media figures — irrespective of their degree of scientific knowledge — who cater to a society historically dedicated to anti-intellectualism.
Thus, Domning’s interesting concept that theistic evolutionists are the people who, because of a common base of belief and common language, are the most capable of communicating with this large, possibly religiously oriented, scientifically unlearned, middle group has a certain deceptive truth. Of course, it is always desirable to have theistic or non-theistic evolutionists speak to the “undecided” and even to the believing fundamentalists. But is it desirable to have theistic evolutionists take the lead in speaking to the general public about SvR and the artificial, creationism/evolution controversy? The answer may not be a simple yes or no but more nuanced. The answer may lie within the philosophical framework of what one is trying to accomplish.
Reaching out to promote scientific literacy
If the sole purpose of talking to the “undecided” group is political in nature, that is, to demonstrate to the public at large that it is possible to be a “believer” and still “believe in” (as opposed to accept based on evidence) evolution, thereby decreasing public opposition to evolution, then, I suppose, there is much merit in Domning’s proposal. However, if the purpose also consists of educating the “undecided” group to the importance and power of natural explanations of natural phenomena and into the ways of science, then Domning’s approach is self-defeating. Why?
One of the essences of science is hypothesis testing. Theistic evolutionists, similar to fundamentalist theists, hold to an unsubstantiated belief in a supernatural being. The basic difference between the two groups pertains to the use of a certain book — the Bible — which both groups consider sacred but interpret differently. There is no way to formulate a hypothesis that would permit the testing of supernatural beliefs. Thus, the underlying basis of theistic evolution, like fundamentalism, is not completely science-based. It opens science to the criticism that science is not really free of the supernatural but that it tolerates (respects) supernaturalism. This is a view which scientists should neither support nor want to promulgate. In the realm of belief, one could make the case that the fundamentalist theists are better situated than are the theistic evolutionists.
Fundamentalists are absolutists. Once believers interpret the Bible, they raise important theological questions. What part of the Bible is literal? What part allegorical? What part metaphorical? Who makes these decisions? How does a believer know whether those making such decision(s) are right? Under such conditions, how does a believer — or anyone — know what is what or which is which with any certainty? There is the danger that one can conclude that biblical interpreters have preconceived positions and they interpret the Bible so as to support those positions: an origin of different religious sects. If such becomes the case, then why should the book still be considered holy? If humans interpret the Bible according to their personal dictates, then perhaps the Bible is not the word of God but the word of humans. If the Bible is not the word of God, then why is there a need for theistic evolution or theistic evolutionists?
Considering the complexities introduced by religion, any evolutionist, therefore could lead in the discussion on SvR and evolution–creation with one proviso: there is no need for atheistic evolutionists to be strident about the non-existence of God, despite the fact that fundamentalists have inextricably bound the two. The emphasis should be placed on explaining what is science, what is religion, and the differences between them, and framing all SvR creationism/evolution discussions from a scientific perspective (natural explanations of natural phenomena) and not a theistic perspective (untestable and unlimited imagination about the supernatural).
Thank God for Evolution! - A Response to a RNCSE Review
"Michael Dowd illustrates in Thank God for Evolution! that there are many ways to be a spiritual person, and that all of them are enriched by an understanding of modern science, especially evolution. This is a creative, provocative book that sheds light on just about any spiritual path one might be on. Many will find their faith revolutionized." — Eugenie C Scott, Executive Director, National Center for Science Education
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to Clay Farris Naff's review of my book, Thank God for Evolution! (RNCSE 2007 Jan–Apr; 27 [1–2]: 52–3). Naff is a gifted writer with a well-honed, wry sense of humor. I found myself laughing even while thinking that he largely missed the purpose of my book. Of course, I realize that the responsibility lies with me, the author, to communicate effectively. That is why I appreciate the opportunity to clarify the nature and purpose of Thank God for Evolution! (TGFE) for RNCSE readers, and to correct one important misrepresentation of my book in Naff's review.
I wrote Thank God for Evolution! mostly to help religious believers from different traditions move toward an evidential worldview without having to abandon their tradition and join the atheist/humanist camp to do so. The book itself emerged out of field-testing the ideas contained within TGFE with religious and non-religious audiences across the theological and philosophical spectrum. Since April 2002, my wife, Connie Barlow (an acclaimed science writer), and I have delivered Sunday sermons, evening programs, and multi-day workshops in more than 550 churches,convents, monasteries, and spiritual centers across the continent, including liberal and conservative Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Unitarian Universalist, Unity, Religious Science, Quaker, Mennonite, and Buddhist groups. We have also presented audience-appropriate versions of this message in nearly a hundred secular settings, including colleges, high schools, grade schools, nature centers, and public libraries.
Few things are more important, it seems to us, at least here in America, than for tens of millions of religious believers, over the next few decades, to come to embrace a science-based understanding of the world. Why? Because it matters — politically, theologically, personally — what we think about evolution. Trying to understand reality without an evolutionary worldview is like trying to understand infection without microscopes or the structure of the universe without telescopes. It's not merely difficult; it's impossible.
Until churches in America preach evolution enthusiastically, sacredly, in ways that expand and enrich faith, the battle over teaching evolutionary science in public schools will never end. Thus, the primary purpose of TGFE is to assist religious believers in letting go of literal interpretations of their otherworldly, supernatural myths and to wholeheartedly embrace an evidential, empirical worldview. Surely, this turn needs to happen in order for radically diverse religious people to cooperate in service of a just and sustainable future.
Those who might initially be put off by the religious language in my book should know that my wife, Connie Barlow, an evolutionary humanist/atheist science writer, worked with me very closely throughout the writing and editing process. She ghostwrote the science chapters, as I mention in my Acknowledgments.
Richard Dawkins graciously allowed me to include a letter he wrote to his daughter Juliet as an appendix in my book. That letter was previously published as the last chapter in his A Devil's Chaplain. There, Dawkins highlights the difference between believing something based on measurable evidence versus believing something based on private revelation, scripture, authority, or tradition. That religious people might, likewise, come to value this distinction is a central theme of my book.
In re-reading Naff's review, other than the half dozen or so minor things he didn't like about my book (too many exclamation points, for example, which he was certainly correct about; we removed nearly three dozen of them before the hardcover was printed), his only really substantive criticism related to the question of teleology. He writes, "Dowd has embraced a species of natural theology, and that biases his worldview toward a benevolent teleology that science cannot support."
This is demonstrably incorrect, however. Nowhere in my book do I suggest, or even imply, that there is a force or intelligence outside the universe (or within it) that is pulling strings or making evolution go in a benevolent direction. With respect to "the arrow of evolution," what I do say is this: When we look back over the course of billions of years of biological and human evolution, we see interdependence and cooperation at increasing scale of size and complexity. This is an empirical fact, not a statement of belief. Three or four billion years ago, the peak of earth's evolved complexity was expressed in carbon-based molecules maintained by processes cooperating at the scale of a millionth of a meter. Today, mutual support in the maintenance of peak (cultural) complexity occurs across distances measured in the millions of meters. It is true that I interpret this trajectory in a way that many find religiously inspiring. I also, however, acknowledge that it is just as legitimate to interpret the same facts in a non-inspiring way.
Similarly, Naff wrongly suggests that in my making the case for chaos and "bad news" catalyzing evolutionary creativity, I must therefore believe that some force or intelligence is intending favorable outcomes. Not at all. Rather, I am simply pointing out that how we choose to interpret reality and life's events profoundly affects the quality of our existence — and this is just as true collectively as it is individually. In my book I mention that many, including myself, have found the mantra "the universe is conspiring on my behalf" to be an exceedingly useful outlook in most situations. That is, when I act as if this were true, I love my life. I do not, however, suggest that this interpretation is "the Truth".
In his final paragraph, Naff writes, "a commitment to science requires an unflinching acceptance of the evidence, good or bad." I could not agree more. There is no guarantee that our species will survive into the future. But it does seems to me that we are far more likely to do so if religious people around the world are offered a way of thinking about science in general, and evolution specifically, that they can enthusiastically embrace. I am certain that one of the reasons TGFE has been endorsed by five Nobel laureates and 120 other leading scientists, ministers, and theologians, from Baptists to Buddhists, is that it is an important step in this direction. As David Sloan Wilson, author of Darwin's Cathedral and Evolution for Everyone, offered:
An itinerant preacher who teaches evolution in the evangelical style? I was skeptical at first, but Dowd remains true to both science and the spirit of religion. He understands that what most people need to accept evolution is not more facts, but an appreciation of what evolution means for our value systems and everyday lives.
Those who have no use for religious language may nonetheless appreciate my book for how it can help the religiously minded to comprehend and value the worldview of science. Time and again, in speaking across North America, I have found that roughly 70% of Americans, including most humanists and virtually all moderate and liberal Christians (and even some evangelicals) find the integration of faith and reason that TGFE offers to be an exciting and radically fresh third way beyond the chronic debate between the "New Atheists" and those espousing "intelligent design". For public school teachers trying to teach the science of evolution to increasingly resistant students from religious backgrounds, TGFE may be just the bridge they've been looking for. That, at least, is my hope.
Thank God for Evolution! is available as a free PDF download via http://ThankGodforEvolution.com.
The Latest on Expelled
As 2008 drew to a close, the good news for the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was that their creationist propaganda movie was getting a bit of press again. The bad news is that it was in the lists of the worst movies of 2008, as well as in a fierce, detailed, and incisive review by the popular film critic Roger Ebert.
EXPELLED IN "WORST-OF" LISTS
The Onion's AV Club (2008 Dec 16), was quickest out of the gate, commenting:
There are terrible movies, and then there are terrible movies that cause harm to society by feeding into its ignorance. Nathan Frankowski's odious antievolution documentary belongs in the latter category. ... Few moments in cinema in 2008 were as shameless and disgusting as the Expelled sequence where Stein solemnly visits a Nazi death camp and unsubtly links "survival of the fittest" theory to the Holocaust.
John Serba of the Grand Rapids Press (2008 Dec 26) wrote, "Ben Stein hosts this pro-Intelligent Design documentary that forgets to include a compelling argument for this viewpoint, and instead chooses to equate Darwinism and its legions of rational scientist followers with Nazis and the Holocaust. Facts rooted in reality are at a premium in this insidious, crassly manipulative dreck." Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel (2008 Dec 26) commented, "Ben Stein's documentary was a cynical attempt to sucker Christian conservatives into thinking they're losing the 'intelligent design' debate because of academic 'prejudice.'"
Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star-Ledger (2008 Dec 27) described Expelled as lifting "its nonsensical knowledge of early man from an Alley Oop comic and its sense of honest inquiry from a snake-handling preacher." In the LA City Beat (2008 Dec 30), Andy Klein wrote:
Stein's "intelligent design" documentary has all the red flags — inadequate or misleading identification of interviewees, aggressively manipulative editing, extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence, and extreme leaps of logic ... particularly suggesting guilt by association, even to he point of laying blame for the Holocaust on Darwin.
And Ken Hanke of the Ashville, North Carolina, Mountain Xpress (2008 Dec 31) said that Expelled was "as corrupt a piece of work as you'll ever encounter."
Expelled fared no better north of the border. Jay Stone of the Canwest News Service (2008 Dec 26) described Expelled as "a masterwork of intellectual dishonesty." And Richard Crouse of Canada AM (2008 Dec 30) commented:
Wrapping his thesis in good old American jingoistic rhetoric — remember this guy used to write speeches for Nixon — Stein repeatedly compares Darwinist scientists to communists ... and even makes the outrageous connection between Darwin's theory and Nazism.
Crouse added, "Perhaps it isn't just a coincidence that the host's initials are BS."
ROGER EBERT ON EXPELLED
Roger Ebert reviewed Expelled in a December 3, 2008, post entitled "Win Ben Stein's mind" on his blog on the Chicago Sun-Times website (available on-line at http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.html) — and he pulled no punches. "The more you know about evolution, or simple logic, the more you are likely to be appalled by the film. No one with an ability for critical thinking could watch more than three minutes without becoming aware of its tactics," he wrote. And he added:
This film is cheerfully ignorant, manipulative, slanted, cherry-picks quotations, draws unwarranted conclusions, makes outrageous juxtapositions (Soviet marching troops representing opponents of ID), pussy-foots around religion (not a single identified believer among the ID people), segues between quotes that are not about the same thing, tells bald-faced lies, and makes a completely baseless association between freedom of speech and freedom to teach religion in a university class that is not about religion.
"And there is worse, much worse," Ebert continued, taking special offense at Expelled's claim that the acceptance of evolution resulted in the Holocaust — "It fills me with contempt." Previously, the Anti-Defamation League said that the movie's claim "is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry." Expelled's lead, Ben Stein, responded, "It's none of their f—ing business," according to Peter McKnight, writing in the Vancouver Sun (2008 Jun 21).
For a thorough critique of Expelled, including a collection of links to reviews of the movie, visit NCSE's Expelled Exposed website. Additionally, a recent issue of Reports of the NCSE (2008 Sep–Dec; 28 [5–6]) is a special issue devoted to debunking Expelled, containing reports on its reception, a summary of the ways in which organizations with a stake in the creationism/evolution controversy reacted, a summary of the various controversies over its use of copyrighted material, and a detailed explanation of its unsuitability for the classroom.
The Temple of Serapis
The Serapeum is a structure better known to scientists as the Temple of Serapis, named for an Egyptian deity worshiped by Romans. It stands along the coast just north of Pozzuoli, Italy. Stone used by Romans to build the temple had originally formed as limestone sediment at the bottom of the sea, where it metamorphosed into marble, and millions of years later was raised as land. Approximately 2000 years ago, the marble was quarried, carved into pillars, and set into the temple, which originally was a marketplace and spa for wealthy Romans. Since that time, sea levels changed several times and in the process the temple was repeatedly submerged and exposed. The volcanic features around the Temple of Serapis helped inspire Virgil's account of the entry into the underworld in the Aeneid.
For most geologists,the Temple of Serapis is more than a monument of ancient art. For example, John Playfair — in a chapter titled "Changes in the Apparent Level of the Sea" — discussed the temple in his Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of Earth (1802). The temple was also visited by Charles Babbage, Emma Darwin, and several other people associated with the creationism/ evolution controversy. However, the scientist most closely associated with the temple is geologist Charles Lyell, who made it an icon of uniformitarianism when he used a drawing of the temple's columns as the frontispiece of his monumental Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface by Reference to Causes now in Operation (Figure 1),a book that the late Stephen Jay Gould described as "the most famous geological book ever written." Lyell, who wanted to "free the science [of geology] from Moses,"emphasized that the geological changes that have been shaping earth for millennia are observable today. Lyell's ideas about the Temple of Serapis prompted Richard Fortney (author of Earth: An Intimate History) to describe the ruins as a "holy place for rationalists." What makes the temple such an important place for geologists?
When Lyell visited the temple's ruins in 1828, its three remaining marble pillars — each some 40-feet high — were still standing (the fourth column lies in pieces on the temple's floor). In Principles of Geology, after describing the columns as "smooth and uninjured to the height of about twelve feet above their pedestals," Lyell made his most important point: "Above this is a zone, about nine feet in height, where the marble has been pierced by a species of marine perforating bivalve, Lithodomus." (Lithodomus is a genus of clams that burrow into piers and boatmoorings.) Since these clams cannot live above the low-tide line,Lyell concluded that the columns had at one time been underwater (many of the columns' holes still have shells of Lithodomus in them). The original temple had been built above sea level, but the presence of the mollusks on the columns meant that the columns had been partially submerged and were standing upright in the ocean. The columns had then been raised to their present level by the volcanic eruption that produced Monte Nuovo just northwest of Pozzuoli.
Because the lowest parts of the Temple's columns were not bored by bivalves, Lyell suspected that these parts of the columns had been buried in volcanic sediments. He was right; these sediments had been excavated in 1749 — almost 80 years before his visit. While at Pozzuoli, Lyell also noted that two other temples were submerged just offshore northwest of the Temple of Serapis. Since these changes had occurred during recorded history, Lyell concluded that the same geological processes — over the expanse of geological history — could build mountains, valleys, and all the other geological features we see today.
Lyell had a dramatic and immediate impact on Charles Darwin; as Darwin noted,"I never forgot that almost everything which I have done in science I owe to the study of [Lyell's] great works." However, Lyell was reluctant to accept Darwin's ideas about evolution, especially as they related to humans. Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which to many was an inevitable sequel to Lyell's advocacy of uniformitarianism, troubled Lyell, who did not initially accept the same degree of continuity of life as he claimed for the physical features of the earth's surface. However, Lyell finally admitted that Darwin's On the Origin of Species was "a splendid case of close reasoning" and that "I have been looking down the wrong road."
Today, the Temple's pillars — which remain standing (Figure 2) — are pictured on the reverse of the prestigious Lyell Medal, which is awarded by the Geological Society of London.
Victory over "Weaknesses" in Texas
In a close vote on January 23, 2009, the Texas state board of education approved a revision of the state's science standards lacking the controversial "strengths and weaknesses" language, which in 2003 was selectively applied by members of the board attempting to dilute the treatment of evolution in the biology textbooks then under consideration. The stakes are high: the standards will determine what is taught in Texas's public school science classrooms and the content of the biology textbooks approved for use in the state for the next ten years. And the threat is real: seven members of the fifteen- member board, including its chair, avowed creationist Don McLeroy, are regarded as in favor of attempts to undermine the teaching of evolution in Texas schools. The removal of the "strengths and weaknesses" language therefore represented a tremendous victory for science education in Texas, with the Dallas Morning News (200 Jan 23) describing the failure of a proposed amendment to reintroduce it as "a major defeat for social conservatives." But the struggle is not over, for a number of scientifically indefensible revisions to the biology and earth and space science standards were adopted at the last minute. Defenders of the integrity of science education in Texas plan to expose the flaws in these revisions and hope for a reversal when the board takes its final vote on the standards at its March 26–27, 2009, meeting.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
The "strengths and weaknesses" language occurs in the old Texas state science standards, which include a requirement that reads, "The student is expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information." The first draft of the revised standards replaced the "strengths and weaknesses" language with "The student is expected to analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing." The change was hailed by the Texas Freedom Network, Texas Citizens for Science, and the 21st Century Science Coalition, as well as by the editorial boards of the Austin American-Statesman (2008 Oct 6) and the Corpus Christi Call-Times (2008 Nov 20). Additionally, a survey conducted by Raymond Eve and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund demonstrated that the vast majority of biologists at universities in Texas rejected the idea of teaching the supposed weaknesses of evolution (see RNCSE 2009 Jan/Feb; 29 [1]: 7).
Nevertheless, as previously reported (RNCSE 2009 Jan/Feb; 29 [1]: 4–7), when the Texas board of education began to hear testimony about the new standards on November 19, 2008, it was presented not with the first draft but with a second draft, in which the "strengths and weaknesses" language was replaced with a variant: "The student is expected to analyze and evaluate strengths and limitations of scientific explanations including those based on accepted scientific data, and evidence from students' observations, experiments, models, and logical statements." At the meeting, defenders of the integrity of science education strongly argued that "strengths and limitations" was no improvement over "strengths and weaknesses." Indeed, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (2008 Nov 20) observed, "With few exceptions, the speakers — scientists, teachers, clergy and grassroots activists — took the side of evolution," a situation that evidently vexed the chair of the board, Don McLeroy, who complained, "This is all being ginned up by the evolution side."
Subsequently, a third draft of the standards appeared in late December 2008, reverting to the first draft's "analyze and evaluate" language. In its discussion of the nature of science, the third draft is similar but not identical to the first draft. According to the first draft, "Science uses observational evidence to make predictions of natural phenomena and to construct testable explanations. If ideas are based upon purported forces outside of nature, they cannot be tested using scientific methods." The third draft reads, "Science, as defined by the National Academy of Sciences, is the 'use of evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process.' ... Students should know that some questions are outside the realm of science because they deal with phenomena that are not scientifically testable." It was the third draft that was under consideration at the January 2009 meeting of the state board of education.
BEFORE THE VOTE
On January 21, 2009, the first day of the board's January meeting, the board heard testimony about the science standards from dozens of witnesses, including NCSE's executive director Eugenie C Scott, who urged the board to heed the advice of the scientific and educational experts who revised the standards and omitted the "strengths and weaknesses" language. The New York Times (2009 Jan 22) quoted her as explaining, "The phrase 'strengths and weaknesses' has been spread nationally as a slogan to bring creationism in through the back door." And the Dallas Morning News (2009 Jan 21) added, "Scott warned the board that if it adopts the requirement, it will lead to textbooks that contain pseudoscience and inaccuracies as publishers try to appease the state and get their books sold in Texas. 'If you require textbook publishers to include bad science, you're going to have problems,' she said, asserting that Texas students will suffer as a result."
Kevin Fisher, a past president of the Science Teachers Association of Texas, told the Times that the attempt to retain the "strengths and weaknesses" language is "an attempt to bring false weaknesses into the classroom in an attempt to get students to reject evolution." And David M Hillis, a distinguished professor of biology at the University of Texas, Austin, concurred, adding, "Every single thing they are representing as a weakness is a misrepresentation of science ... These are science skeptics. These are people with religious and political agendas." Ryan Valentine of the Texas Freedom Network worried about the consequence for Texas's image: "A misguided crusade to include phony weaknesses in the theory of evolution in our science curriculum will send a message to the rest of the nation that science takes a back seat to politics in Texas," the Morning News reported him as saying.
Also testifying were people who supported the "strengths and weaknesses" language, including a representative of the Discovery Institute, often betraying the connection between the language and creationism. A teacher quoted by the Morning News, for example, said, "As a creationist, I don't want creationism taught in science classes, but this proposal [to drop the strengths and weaknesses rule] smacks of censorship." A mechanical engineer quoted by the Times said, echoing a rhetorical theme prominent in creationist circles since the Scopes era, "Textbooks today treat it as more than a theory, even though its evidence has been found to be stained with halftruths, deception and hoaxes." (As NCSE's Glenn Branch and Louise S Mead recently wrote in Evolution: Education and Outreach [2008; 1 (3): 287–9], "[William Jennings Bryan's] position — that it is okay to teach about evolution but only as something conjectural or speculative, as 'just a theory' and not as a fact — continues to resonate.")
THE CRUCIAL VOTE
The crucial vote not to restore the "strengths and weaknesses" language took place on January 22, 2009, the second day of the board's meeting. Board members who opposed the amendment cited the need to respect the work of the experts, according to the Morning News, with Mary Helen Berlanga commenting, "We're not talking about faith. We're not talking about religion. ... We're talking about science. We need to stay with our experts and respect what they have requested us to do," and Geraldine Miller similarly commenting, "We need to respect what our teachers have recommended to us." Rick Agosto, widely considered to be a swing voter, was quoted in the San Antonio Express-News (2009 Jan 23) as saying, "I have to consider the experts," and Bob Craig was quoted in the Austin American-Statesman (2009 Jan 23) as saying, "We appointed individuals, educators — good solid people — to review the (standards) in science. They made a recommendation, and, again, we are taking away from what the educators have indicated to us is the best wording."
Members of the board who favored the amendment seemed, however, to consider themselves to be experts. Ken Mercer — who is on record as claiming that evolution is falsified by the absence of any transitional forms between cats and dogs — was reported by the Express-News as saying that he was not going to rubber-stamp the recommendations of the experts who revised the standards. And he was also quoted by the Morning News as complaining, "The other side has a history of fraud. Those arguing against us have a bad history of lies." Steven Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science, who was blogging from the meeting (see sidebar), reported that Mercer cited "the bogus and misleading examples of Piltdown Man, Haeckel's vertebrate embryo drawings, the peppered moths that were glued to tree trunks, and the half-bird, half-dinosaur that were all 'evolutionary frauds'" — all of which are familiar staples of creationist literature attempting to discredit evolution.
Ultimately, as the Morning News reported, "The amendment failed to pass on a 7–7 vote, with four Democrats and three Republicans voting no. Another Democrat — who would have opposed the amendment — was absent." The significance of the vote was apparent to the Texas media: for example, the headline of the story in the Morning News was "Texas Board of Education votes against teaching evolution weaknesses"; the San Antonio Express-News began its story with the sentence, "A 20-year-old Texas tradition allowing public schools to teach 'both the strengths and weaknesses' of evolution succumbed to science Thursday when the State Board of Education voted to abolish the wording from its curriculum standards"; and the headline of the story in the Austin American-Statesman was "State board shuns disputed language on evolution." And the momentousness of the vote was not lost on NCSE's executive director Eugenie C Scott, who explained in a January 23, 2009, press release (available on-line at http://ncse.com/news/2009/01/weaknesses-removed-from-texas-science-standards-004231): "The misleading language [in the original science standards] has been a creationist loophole in the science TEKS [Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills] for decades. Its removal is a huge step forward."
A QUALIFIED VICTORY
The victory was not complete, however. A flurry of amendments introduced by creationist members of the board sought to compromise the treatment of evolution in the biology standards. Terri Leo successfully proposed a revision to the standards to replace verbs such as "identify," "recognize," and "describe" in section 7 of the high school biology standards with "analyze and evaluate" — no other section of the standards was treated similarly. Worse, Don McLeroy successfully proposed a revision to section 7 to require that students "analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record." It is significant that "sudden appearance" is a creationist catchphrase, associated in particular with young-earth creationist Wendell Bird. During oral arguments in Edwards v Aguillard, for example, Jay Topkis observed, "those buzzwords come right out of Mr Bird's lexicon. ... They're his."
Just as worrying were the amendments introduced by creationist members of the board that sought to compromise the treatment of evolution and related concepts in the earth and space science standards. Barbara Cargill successfully proposed revisions to the standards to add, in her words, "humility and tentativeness"; in the view of Steven Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science, however," All five of the changes ... are not needed and were proposed to weaken and damage the ESS TEKS." The worst change was to a requirement that students "evaluate a variety of fossil types, transitional fossils, fossil lineages, and significant fossil deposits with regard to their appearance, completeness, and rate and diversity of evolution," which now reads, "evaluate a variety of fossil types, proposed transitional fossils, fossil lineages, and significant fossil deposits and assess the arguments for and against universal common descent in light of this fossil evidence."
NCSE's Eugenie C Scott, who was at the meeting and observed the board's confusion over these amendments, commented in NCSE's January 23, 2009, press release, "They didn't ... have time to talk to scientists about the creationistinspired amendments made at the last minute. Once they do, I believe these inaccurate amendments will be removed." The Texas Freedom Network concurred, observing on its blog (see sidebar):
Board members — none of whom are research scientists, much less biologists — appeared confused when they were asked to consider amendments with changes to specific passages of the standards. That's why it's foolish to let dentists and insurance salesmen play-pretend that they're scientists. The result is that the standards draft includes language that is more tentative. Not good, but not necessarily disastrous overall.
With respect to McLeroy's revision, TFN added, "What we saw is what happens when a dentist pretends that he knows more about science than scientists do."
THE AFTERMATH
All of the action — the vote not to restore the "strengths and weaknesses" language and the flurry of amendments from creationist members of the board apparently eager to salvage a small victory from the defeat — occurred on the second day of the board's meeting. On the third day, January 23, 2009, there was virtually no discussion as the board voted unanimously to adopt the science standards as revised on the previous day, without hearing any further comments from those in attendance. The vote, again, is only a preliminary vote, with a final vote on the standards expected at the board's March 26–27, 2009, meeting. The Houston Chronicle (2009 Jan 23) reported, "Scientists vowed to fight the plan before the board takes final action in March"; since the survey conducted by Raymond Eve and the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund demonstrated that the vast majority of biologists at universities in Texas rejected the idea of teaching the supposed weaknesses of evolution, there ought to be no shortage of scientifically competent advice for the board to heed.
Reports in the press recognized that the overall result was a qualified victory for science, with the Houston Chronicle (2009 Jan 23), for example, reporting, "Texas schools won't have to teach the weaknesses of evolution theories anymore, but the State Board of Education ushered in other proposed changes Friday that some scientists say still undermine evolution instruction and subject the state to ridicule," and reporting Steven Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science as concerned that McLeroy's revision, if not reversed, would make the standards a laughingstock. David Hillis, a distinguished biology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, added, "This new proposed language is absurd. It shows very clearly why the board should not be rewriting the science standards, especially when they introduce new language that has not even been reviewed by a single science expert. He also told The New York Times (2009 Jan 24), "It's a clear indication that the chairman of the state school board doesn't understand the science."
In the same vein, editorials in Texas and nationally have praised the omission of the "strengths and weaknesses" language but lamented the creationist revisions. The Austin American-Statesman (2009 Jan 24) seemed pleased if not excited about what it termed "an incremental step away from dogma-driven curriculum decision-making," while the Waco Tribune (2009 Jan 26) was happy about the omission of a phrase that "was meant to open the door to the undermining of evolution theory" but dismayed by McLeroy's revision, which it described as "a fall-back attempt by the right wing of the board to hang tough in its effort to undermine evolution theory." The New York Times (2009 Jan 26), which earlier (2009 Jan 22) acknowledged that "[t]he debate here has far-reaching consequences; Texas is one of the nation's biggest buyers of textbooks, and publishers are reluctant to produce different versions of the same material," editorialized, "The lesson we draw from these shenanigans is that scientifically illiterate boards of education should leave the curriculum to educators and scientists who know what constitutes a sound education."
AUTHOR'S ADDRESS:
Glenn Branch
NCSE
PO Box 9477
Berkeley CA 94709-0477
branch@ncseweb.org
Glenn Branch is NCSE's deputy director.
FOR FURTHER READINGIn addition to the newspaper reports cited, a variety of on-line sources provided detailed, candid, and often uninhibited running commentary on the proceedings. Texas Citizens for Science's Steven Schafersman blogged, and posted photographs, on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog: http://www.chron.com/commons/readerblogs/evosphere.html; the Texas Freedom Network was blogging on its TFN Insider blog: http://tfnblog.wordpress.com/; NCSE's Joshua Rosenau was blogging on his personal blog, Thoughts from Kansas (hosted by ScienceBlogs): http://www.scienceblogs.com/tfk; and the Houston Press blogged the first day of the meeting: http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/political_animals. For those wanting to get their information from the horse's mouth, minutes and audio recordings of the board meeting will be available on the Texas Education Agency's website via http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=5173 and http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=4473. NCSE's previous reports on events in Texas are available on-line at http://ncse.com/news/texas. |
Winning Their Hearts and Minds: Who Should Speak for Evolution?
Book reviews in recent issues of RNCSE have showcased a growing number of authors and reviewers who advocate some form of theistic evolution. However, other recent books by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and other militant atheist advocates of evolution have attracted much more media attention — naturally, since extreme views always sell more newspapers than moderate ones.
Moderate views on creation-vs-evolution are not in short supply. Yet despite the Gallup polls consistently showing 35–40% of Americans somewhere between the poles of special creationism and strictly materialist evolutionism (with only 9–15% for the latter view), this reality is studiously ignored both by creationists and by materialists like Dawkins (and others). This not only polarizes the debate unnecessarily, but fundamentally misrepresents it. To break this impasse and move toward defusing evolution as an explosive social and educational issue, I propose the perhaps shocking idea that it is time for theistic evolutionists to take over from atheists as the public face of evolution advocacy.
A Cultural Stalemate
The stalemated conflict between creationists and evolutionists here in the US (and now spreading abroad) reminds me a bit of conditions in a certain Middle Eastern country where religious passions have also contributed to a dangerous degree of political polarization. At one extreme, we have religious fundamentalists whose worldview is deeply threatened by what they see as a corrupting secular culture and ideology and who resist this at all costs, sometimes by (intellectually) unscrupulous means. At the other pole, with scant understanding of and less sympathy for the thinking, culture, language, and concerns of their religious adversaries, are militant evangelical atheists, waging a heavy-handed, ill-advised Global War on Theism that needlessly provokes their opponents and only inflames the situation. Having seized the mantle of spokespersons for evolution, and the spotlight of the media, they drown out the voices of fellow evolutionists who would pursue a less arrogant and abrasive policy.
Secular critics like these tend to rest secure in the Green Zones of college campuses and major cities. Many scientists, in fact, declared "Mission Accomplished" years ago and dismissed the creationists as just a few diehards whose time has passed. But the sectarians who dominate much of the countryside, and have the hearts and minds of much of the population, are actively targeting their IEDs (intelligent educational designs) at school boards and state legislatures across the country. Meanwhile the noncombatant population, caught in the crossfire and not necessarily committed to any extremist faction, wants nothing more from them than answers to the great questions of human existence: the meaning of life, the reasons for suffering, and whether there is a God, an afterlife, and ultimate justice (Pennock 1997).
In this asymmetrical warfare, the secularists make easy, static targets. They fruitlessly deploy ponderous scientific artillery against the lightweight arguments of "scientific creationist" guerrillas, and wonder at how the latter always blithely dance aside to fight again another day. But the creationist leaders and their lay followers are clearly motivated by those existential and theological concerns and not by science, so the scientific arguments do not lay a glove on them.
As long as the secularists insist on prosecuting the war unilaterally in this way, they will not prevail. The only hope for a successful outcome lies with a coalition: the secularists must ally themselves with — indeed, yield leadership to — theistic evolutionists, who understand the creationists’ religious culture, speak their religious language, and can engage them on their home turf.
The Diversity Among Theists
Anyone who pays close attention to creationists’ rhetoric will see that they ignore whenever possible the inconvenient existence of the large segment of Christianity that accepts evolution (Matsumura 1995: 22). Since most of their philosophical and moral arguments are aimed at atheists, these arguments fall flat when they are confronted with opponents who share many of their theological presuppositions. Such opponents can cut to the chase, posing to creationists the key question, "What is it about evolution that really bothers you? Because if it is a fear that life in the Darwinian view has no meaning and no room for God, then I am here to testify that you can be both a Darwinian and a Christian — in fact, a better, more intellectually consistent Christian!" In other words, Christian extremism is best left to other Christians to handle in-house.
Fundamentalists with an unshakable commitment to biblical literalism, of course, will not be open to this approach. But many people cling to a literal reading of Genesis only because no one has ever shown them acceptable answers to their existential questions that do not conflict with science. By agreeing with the creationists that such answers are impossible, the extreme materialists self-defeatingly drive such folks into the creationist camp.
What I am proposing is simply that those who embrace theistic evolution, Christians especially, shed whatever shyness they have about saying so, in public and in private, and actively engage family, friends, colleagues, clergy, elected officials, news reporters, and anyone else who evinces doubt about the compatibility of evolution and religious belief. Lack of knowledge is no longer an excuse, given the rich resources recently provided by writers such as Beatrice Bruteau, Denis Edwards, Stephen Godfrey, John Haught, Kenneth Miller, Michael Ruse, Patricia Williams, and many others — most of them reviewed or otherwise represented in these pages. Fill the silence that these authors have begun to dispel. We need not agree on all the theological details; the goal is simply to make it unmistakably clear that the atheists have no monopoly on Darwinism. Speak about it, write about it, publish your own insights; but in and out of season, bear witness that you and many like you see ways to reconcile faith and science without compromising either.
Objections to this proposal are foreseeable. The militant atheists will say that it publicly divides the evolution camp; that it is an intellectually dishonest tactical sellout to theism; and that it inappropriately drags religion into a scientific debate just as the creationists do.
However, it is disingenuous to pretend that all evolutionists see eye-to-eye on philosophical or theological matters. We rightly criticize creationists who obscure the divisions among anti-evolutionists, as is done at the new Creation Museum in Kentucky (Heaton 2007). In fact, both extremes downplay their divisions, which they see as weaknesses. For the creationists, it really is a weakness, because they feel the need for science to buttress weak theology, and therefore they must make the science point unambiguously in their direction.
But the diversity of theological views among evolutionists is potentially a strength for us in this conflict, because it corroborates one of our central arguments: the theological neutrality of good science. It shows that a variety of religious views is compatible with the facts of science — and some of those views may be acceptable to many who have hitherto counted themselves as anti-evolutionists. It humanizes what is now seen by many, and held up by our adversaries, as evolutionists’ rigid hostility to religion and contempt for the deepest concerns of most human beings. That kind of religious rigidity is something we associate with fundamentalist religious groups. Think: if we are all about good science, then how did we get maneuvered into being known by a huge public mainly for an extreme religious viewpoint (and one that many of us do not even share)? Who are the real fundamentalists in this fight?
Religionists are hardly unaware that various churches and their members have theological differences. They will not be scandalized to learn that scientists also disagree on these matters that are outside of science. The point is to build a bridge across the divide, by showing them that (surprise!) many evolutionists can and do agree with them on many points of religious doctrine.
Furthermore, this is not a false irenicism, smoothing over fundamental differences between creationists and evolutionists just to quiet the controversy. In truth, many (perhaps most!) evolutionists are theists of one sort or another. Their views are as sincerely and validly held as those of the atheists and have as much (perhaps more!) claim to be representative of evolutionist thinking. Atheists have every right to believe that theists are woefully misguided in failing to see the obsolescence of religion after Darwin; but that is their philosophical opinion, not an infallibly proven proposition of science or logic. No one is expecting them to shut up or sign on to theistic evolution for the sake of a united front; but the theists are justifiably tired of having the folks on both ends of the spectrum pretend they don’t exist — presumed to be atheists by the creationists, and presumptuously spoken for by the real atheists.
The Nature of the Debate
Does my proposal drag religion into a scientific debate? Let’s get real: this has not been a merely scientific debate for a hundred years. The atheists themselves, like the rest of us, proclaim this from the rooftops: the scientific community accepted evolution generations ago, and creationism today has none but religious motives. Yet we keep acting as though the creationists’ phony scientific arguments can be laid to rest by piling on more and more layers of new scientific data. Maybe that will persuade a few folks on the fence who are genuinely perplexed by scientific questions; but it is assuredly irrelevant to most people who disbelieve evolution — because they are scientific laypeople and do not lose sleep over the Second Law of Thermodynamics or whether paleontologists have a correct understanding of punctuated equilibrium. What they do care about are those eternal existential questions, and whether belief in evolution is a threat to civilized society as we know it. Until we start addressing those concerns, the two sides of the debate will continue talking past each other, just as they have for the last 40 years and more.
Finally, is my proposal basically a tactical one? Of course it is — because the old tactics have failed to achieve more than a courtroom stalemate, while the soul of creationism is marching on in churches, classrooms, political campaigns, and the rest of society. We have been fighting the wrong war with the wrong weapons. If we are content to rest on our courtroom victories, as the winners of every stand-up fight, we will end up as we did in Vietnam: or as Sitting Bull supposedly said after the Little Bighorn, we will have "won a great battle, but lost a great war."
To really protect education from creationism’s inroads, it has to be marginalized not just scientifically and legally but theologically; and the atheists among us cannot do that. The voices of other evolutionists need to be heard. There are many such voices out there; let’s start putting them front and center.
References
Heaton T. 2007. A visit to the new creation "museum." Reports of the National Center for Science Education 27 (1–2): 21–4.Matsumura M, editor. 1995. Voices for Evolution, second ed. Berkeley (CA): National Center for Science Education.
Pennock R. 1997. Naturalism, creationism and the meaning of life: the case of Philip Johnson revisited. Creation/Evolution 16 (2):10–30.
Review: Back to Darwin
Back to Darwin: A Richer Account of Evolution consists of a collection of two dozen papers presented at an academic conference on evolution and religion organized by the Center for Process Studies at Claremont, California, in October 2004. The volume consists of an editor’s introduction, four topical sections containing four to nine essays each, plus an appendix. Most of the essays are contributed by authors whose names will be familiar to anyone who has browsed the literature in what might be called “the reconciliatory genre of science and religion writing,” especially as it concerns evolution. The editor makes no bones about the fact that whereas he has attempted to honor the integrity of each author’s contribution(s), he has also selected, organized, and contextualized this material in order to highlight how a “process perspective” can remedy some of the defects of current neo-Darwinian thinking. (“Process thought” is an elaboration and application of ideas developed by Alfred North Whitehead in the 1920s that takes events, processes, and integration rather than materialistic and dualistic ways of thinking as metaphysically basic.)
Section I consists of “Background Materials. ”The essays in this section seek to convey a history of the problem of science and religion, to provide the basics of contemporary evolutionary theorizing, and to survey some of the tensions between Darwinian ideas and religious belief. Section II aims “To Broaden and Diversify Evolutionary Theory” by integrating scientific ideas from thermodynamics, quantum physics, and chemistry into evolutionary thinking, as well as by promoting the underappreciated biological ideas of neo-Lamarckism, symbiogenesis, Gaia, and the Baldwin effect. Section III takes up “The Philosophical Challenge to Neo- Darwinism.” The inclusion of the term “Neo-Darwinism” in the title of this section alerts the reader to expect a critique, as this term is seldom used by contemporary biologists in describing their work, but occasionally crops up in the writings of authors providing an historical account of the synthesis of Darwin’s theory of natural selection with Mendelian genetics, or by those about to launch into a critique of Darwinian ideas and who therefore need to fix in their sights the intended target. In this case it is the latter. The main theme of the essays in this section is that Darwinism, as currently conceived, needlessly narrows and limits the nature of evolution in a way that excludes all consideration of subjectivity, emergence, and purpose. The final section, Section IV, addresses the issue of “Evolution and God” by posing the question, “Can a scientific account of the world be incorporated into a theistic one?”The essays in this section tend to answer that question in the affirmative by seeking to modify both theology and science in order to integrate them into a unified vision of reality.
It would be impossible to summarize each of the individual essays here. But certain recurring themes stand out. Unlike books by outspoken atheists (such as by Richard Dawkins) that attempt to use Darwin to demolish religious belief, the contributors to this volume seek to find a rapprochement between an affirmation of Darwin’s fundamental ideas and religious belief. Its spirit is fundamentally reconciliatory rather than antagonistic — seeking integration rather than opposition. What unites the essays (and accounts for the volume’s title) is the contributors’ affirmation of Darwin’s demonstration of the fact of biological evolution conjoined with a concern to correct certain assumptions and overstatements in the development of evolutionary theory after Darwin. Of particular concern are certain “extreme” statements of evolution according to which genes are conceived as being unaffected by their environments, and in which more inclusive life-forms (for example, organisms) essentially disappear from explanations of evolutionary change. Hence the authors propose to “go back” to re-affirm Darwin’s major, distinctive ideas without necessarily embracing subsequent restrictive extensions and elaborations of Darwin’s ideas that underwrite (or presuppose) atheistic views.
The volume will be of interest to anyone concerned to explore alternatives to the science–religion debate as framed by the most uncompromising proponents of godless evolution, on the one hand, and by advocates of “creation science” or “intelligent design”, on the other. Perhaps of particular interest for readers of this journal are the views of the volume’s editor concerning the teaching of evolution in public schools. While agreeing with the vast majority of biologists that “creation science” and “intelligent design” have no place in public school science education, and affirming that schools should avoid teaching that evolution shows signs of being directed or guided by an intelligent agent, he nonetheless maintains that the teaching of evolution in public schools should also avoid saying or implying that the evolutionary process is wholly purposeless and devoid of values. Yet rather than leave it at that, as many educators might be inclined to do, Cobb explicitly harnesses the essays in the book to show how such a stance can be underwritten by a theistically-friendly- yet-neutral metaphysics (process philosophy) that gives each side in the evolution-creation/ design debate something (but not everything) it wants: naturalism (of a sort) without dogmatic atheism; purpose and values without fundamentalism or refurbished natural theology.
Of course, precisely because this approach attempts to chart a middle course between the polarized extremes in the evolution-creation dispute, it will seem satisfactory to neither side. More generally, as an attempt at a philosophical via media it is bound to suffer from the fate of nearly every such attempt; or as I explain to my students, it will be yet another confirmation of what I like to call “Shanahan’s Law”: For any fundamental philosophical problem, there will be solutions that lie at either extreme that are admirably clear but which lead to enormous difficulties and hence will be hard to justify; and there will be a range of intermediate positions with greater but varying degrees of plausibility, but burdened by corresponding unclarity sometimes bordering on outright obscurity. The philosophical dilemma of clarity versus plausibility is hardly unique to the science-religion dispute, or to the project of this book, and therefore should not dissuade readers from plunging in. Indeed, to the extent that this volume encourages readers to consider intriguing alternatives to the most vocally defended poles of the debate about the teaching of evolution in public schools, this volume deserves a wide readership.
Review: Charles Darwin
Michael Ruse’s most recent book, like his Darwinism and its Discontents (2006; reviewed in RNCSE 2007 Jan–Apr; 27 [1–2]: 50–2), is a general work on Darwinism, including chapters on Darwin’s biography, the history of Darwinian evolution, evidence for his theory, and chapters on religion and morality. This time, however, he is contributing to the Blackwell Great Minds series, which includes such titles as Kant, Descartes, and Sartre. So, as one might expect, there is more attention paid here to philosophical issues, and the general tone is also more philosophical than the earlier text. Still, the style is informal and should be both accessible to readers of various backgrounds and useful for readers at various levels of expertise in evolutionary (and philosophical) matters.
Most of the topics
included
here have been canvassed before,
and Ruse has not changed positions
on controversial topics such
as the relationship(s) between
Darwinism and religion or morality,
or the status of neo-Darwinism
(including the centrality of population
genetics). The novelty here is
(again) the concentration on
Darwin’s contributions to issues of
primary concern to philosophers.
In order to provide a sense of this
approach, I will concentrate on
one issue, evolution and morality.
The general importance of the relation between Darwinian evolution and ethics has increased recently, with texts such as Richard Weikart’s From Darwin to Hitler and Ben Stein’s recent movie Expelled painting Darwinism red with innocent blood. The Discovery Institute (among others) is using these sources to push the moral bankruptcy and culpability of evolutionary science to anyone who will listen and is sending copies of Expelled to “key policy makers” throughout the country (as reported in a recent fundraising letter from NCSE).
Even if justified, of course, such a claim does not affect the scientific status of Darwinian evolution. Concern with the Naturalistic Fallacy (attempting to derive an “ought” from an “is’” or to defend a course of action ethically because it is deemed natural, and so on) has led more than a few philosophers and scientists (from Thomas Henry Huxley to Stephen Jay Gould) to refrain from finding any clues about morality in nature. The flip side of the Naturalistic Fallacy, however, is the Moralistic Fallacy (trying to derive “is not” from “ought not”, or attacking the scientific status of a theory based on its allegedly unpalatable moral consequences). None of the evidence supporting evolutionary biology is changed one iota by attacking social policies allegedly based upon it. Still, such political attacks push evolutionists to investigate seriously what, if any, implications evolutionary biology may have for moral theory. This blending of philosophical and biological perspectives has been a concern of Ruse’s for some time — his position on evolution and morality has been greatly influenced by Edward O Wilson, with whom he coauthored two articles in the mid- 80s (Ruse and Wilson 1985, 1986) — and is addressed again in chapter 9 of Charles Darwin.
Basically, Ruse holds that human social behavior is largely under biological influence, often masked behind psychological predispositions (“epigenetic rules”) to behave as we ought to. These predispositions are perceived as being based on objective moral rules, applicable to all rational beings (p 239–40). Our innate moral intuitions allow for quick and dirty judgments about social challenges where actual calculations of costs and benefits (and/or duties) would take far too long to be useful in most day-to-day affairs (p 236). The biological mechanisms fueling the psychological motivations are kin selection and reciprocal altruism, well-known to evolutionary biologists and more than adequate for mapping onto our actual (as opposed to idealized) moral behavior (p 232, 237). Objective, transcendent moral rules are an illusion on this view, due to our objectifying (or reifying) strong moral sentiments (p 240). They are, however, “noble lies”, since they provide motivational teeth for altruistic behavior and hold some of our other more selfish motivations in check for the sake of social intercourse. So Ruse promotes a skepticism about the objectivity of morality (there are no species-independent moral facts), while arguing for the possibility of (limited) altruism being a successful evolutionary adaptation (that is, evolution does not invariably favor selfishness or nature red in tooth and claw).
This represents one among many recent attempts to unpack the relationship between evolutionary theory and human morality, and the evolutionary models used (kin selection and reciprocal altruism) are accepted by the majority of interpretations (which eschew any use of group selection). With more sophisticated models of group selection (Sober and Wilson 1998) on the table, however, serious investigations of evolutionary morality may need to expand the usual armaments available to individual-level selection. In fact, another recent work interpreting Darwin and Darwinism from a more philosophical perspective (Lewens 2007) takes just this path. Lewens shows that group-level selection is both closer to Darwin’s own views concerning evolution and morality, and also has better evidential support than many biologists acknowledge.
Another consideration involves the meaning of “objective moral facts.” If moral realism is committed to the view that legitimate “ought” statements refer to species-independent moral truths or moral rules that all rational creatures (human or not) must acknowledge, then Ruse and Wilson are right to disavow such moral facts. But if moral realism instead (as a counterpoint to relativism and subjectivism) need only be committed to species-wide moral facts, contingent on human evolutionary and cultural history, but independent of individual (or even individual cultures’) beliefs, then it is not so clear that objective morality need be an illusion. If our sentiments are structured by evolutionary history and our basic moral intuitions are grounded on strong emotional sentiments that include sympathy (and empathy) and motivate altruism, then it is possible that, at some level(s), moral claims can correspond with human truths, and in that sense, be factual.
This, too, would be controversial. But it is not clear that faith-based or other so-called absolutist moral codes can do any better at justifying objective, non-relative moral claims. There are at least as many disagreements within and across such views as there are among non-absolutist approaches. In the end, whether one accepts a position like Ruse’s, or prefers one that utilizes some notion of group selection, Darwinists will have no more difficulty supporting the grounds for moral behavior than will the faith-based approaches that blame Darwinism for the Holocaust. After all, anti-Semitism has rich roots in the history of Christianity, and this history includes at least as much intolerance and immoral behavior as does Darwinism (even when the latter is construed most broadly, and inaccurately).
References
Lewens T. 2007. Darwin. London: Routledge.
Ruse M. 1984. The morality of the gene. The Monist 67: 167–99.
Ruse M. 1986. Evolutionary ethics: A phoenix arisen. Zygon 21: 95–112.
Ruse M. 1999. Evolutionary ethics: What can we learn from the past? Zygon 34: 435–51.
Ruse M. 2006. Darwinism and its Discontents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ruse M, Wilson EO. 1985. The evolution of ethics. New Scientist 17: 50–2.
Ruse M, Wilson EO. 1986. Moral philosophy as applied science. Philosophy 61: 173– 92.
Sober E, Wilson DS. 1998. Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Wilson EO. 1998. The biological basis of morality. The Atlantic Monthly 281: 53–70.
Review: Evolutionary Creation
As indicated by its title, this primarily theological work is aimed at the Christian anti-evolution audience and at Christians who accept evolution but want to think further about how that acceptance comports, or can be made to comport, with their faith. Denis Lamoureux (who holds doctorates in both theology and biology) is to be thanked for this attempt to persuade young-earth creationists (YECs), by a close examination of the Bible, science, and history, that the expectations they have of the first eleven chapters of the Bible are simply wrong. Furthermore, he contends that their widely held beliefs are also detrimental to Christianity because their mistakes throw up stumbling blocks in the way of the scientifically literate who might have an interest in this faith. His “in” with this audience is that he is a passionate Evangelical Christian and makes no apologies for boldly affirming his faith in Jesus. His intimate familiarity with the audience he wants so desperately to move in the direction of accepting the reality of evolution will certainly help.
My optimism, however, about
how influential this work will be is
tempered by how seemingly ineffective
other similar attempts have
been. Lamoureux is asking his
intended YEC audience to swallow
a very large pill. From having been
a YEC, I know that most will
choke on
Lamoureux’s
central argument,
which
is that the science
and history
in Genesis
Chapters
1–11 represent
only the
“science and history of the day.”
They are not factual but rather
only “incidental vessels”, which
nevertheless deliver divinely
inspired eternal spiritual truths.
But for many Christians, the Bible,
divinely inspired, is historically and
scientifically accurate on any subject
on which it speaks. They consider
anathema the notion that the
Genesis accounts of creation, the
origin of humans, the Flood, and
the origin of languages are all
wrong. Young-earth creationists do
not take kindly to the notion that
what they believe to be literally
true and scientifically accurate are
no more than incidental vessels.
Although the original Hebrew
audience had no reason not to
believe the science and history of
their day, Lamoureux is asking
YECs not to believe this intuitive
and originally intended interpretation
of Genesis; he is to be commended
for doing his best to fight
an uphill battle.
YECs will be quick to ask: If the Genesis stories are only incidental vessels, what is our guarantee that the faith and spiritual components of these stories are true? For the vast majority of young-earth creationists, if the tangible scientific and historic elements of Genesis 1–11 are shown not to be true, then they no longer prove the trustworthiness and accuracy of the parts of the story that are not scientifically testable. In their mind, if the Bible gets its science and history wrong, then there is no reason to place any confidence in those parts of the Bible that demand faith (they possess a conditional faith). But to a YEC it is even more devastating than this, because if all ancient Biblical stories related to Creation and the Flood are wrong, those errors suggest that the divinely inspired eternal spiritual truths are also not true. If this is the case, then the burden of proof in the trustworthiness of the Bible as having had a divine origin increases to an uncomfortable level. This terrifying thought is accompanied by a dreaded realization that the hand of atheists and skeptics might just have been strengthened.
What Lamoureux is asking YECs to do with Genesis would be akin to also asking them to believe that none of the miracles that Jesus did were done as they are recorded in the Gospels. The miracles are the guarantor that Jesus was who he claimed to be, God incarnate, and that his spiritual and intangible claims are also to be taken seriously. Consider the New Testament account of when John the Baptist was imprisoned and he sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus if he was “…the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Luke 7:18–23). At the time this narrative took place it is evident that John was struggling to reconcile his mission with his imprisonment. The important point here is that Jesus confirmed his authenticity and credentials as the “one who was to come” (that is, their Messiah) through the miracles that he performed. The witnessed and verifiable miracles guaranteed that Jesus was the Messiah.
But what if Jesus had simply said to John’s disciples: “Sorry, no miraculous signs; absolutely nothing out of the ordinary here. John is simply going to have to believe that I am the ‘one who was to come.’” What would John have done with that news, and would we know about Jesus today? But it is this very lack of tangible proof (both scientific and historic) in Genesis that Lamoureux is expecting YECs to overlook and yet still accept the spiritual truths as having had a divine origin. Instead of making the paradigm shift, many YECs will prefer to continue to retreat into denial and refuse to relinquish their anti-evolutionary mindset.
I agree with Lamoureux that Genesis represents the science and history of the day, but he should have emphasized more forcefully that it also reflects the religious and spiritual level of understanding of the day. Genesis does not present all there is to know about God. The Bible itself documents a progressive (an evolutionary-like) revelation of God, as that understanding continues to grow and change even today.
As valuable as this book would be to conservative Christian students, it will not likely darken the door of any American public school. Lamoureux’s bold profession of faith in and love for Jesus will ensure that it is kept at bay. Nevertheless, I will be recommending this book to anyone who might have even the slightest interest in moving from an anti-evolutionary world view.
Review: Render Unto Darwin
Philosopher of science James H Fetzer argues that creationism, both in its fundamentalist young-earth form and in the guise of allegedly more sophisticated “intelligent design”, fails to qualify as science, and therefore is not a respectable theoretical alternative to evolutionary science. As the book’s subtitle implies, Fetzer holds that the attack on evolution is part of a comprehensive effort by the religious and political right to undermine scientific rationality and the authority of science. He further identifies the right’s attack on science as a single battle of a multi-front offensive by political and religious extremists.
Fetzer, of course, is not the first professional philosopher of science to criticize creationism (see Kitcher 1982, 2007; Ruse 1982; Pennock 1999; Shanks 2004; Sarkar 2007), and his critique is decidedly less effective than those previous ones. What made Philip Kitcher’s books, for instance, so effective was that he offered trenchant, detailed, point-by-point critiques of creationist claims, based upon a close reading of creationist texts, and informed by a deep understanding of the scientific issues. Fetzer’s treatment of leading “intelligent design” proponents Michael Behe and William Dembski is cursory at best. Fetzer apparently does not feel that it is necessary to delve into a detailed critique because he thinks that creationism blatantly violates the criteria that demarcate science from nonscience, and that creationist claims can therefore be dismissed without much ado.
In recent years professional philosophers of science have largely shied away from the attempt to formulate criteria to demarcate science from nonscience, for the simple reason that past such efforts have come to grief. Many attempts have been made to spell out the distinctive virtues of scientific theories, such as falsifiability, progressiveness, predictiveness, and so on, that are supposed to distinguish genuinely scientific theories from less worthy ones. Such proposals do not hold up under careful scrutiny. Larry Laudan seems to speak for the majority of philosophers of science when he warns of “the probable futility of seeking an epistemic version of a demarcation criterion” (Laudan 1988: 348). In other words, “science” has historically comprised a set of practices and beliefs so varied that they defy neat categorization by a one-size-fits-all set of demarcation criteria.
It is not, of course, that we do not value scientific theories that, among other things, are falsifiable, progressive, and accurate. Of course we do. The problem is that it is one thing to list some of the various virtues of good theories, but it is another to try to base strict demarcation standards on our descriptions of such desiderata. Consider Sir Karl Popper’s famous falsifiability criterion. Popper held that a theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable, that is, if and only if some observation, measurement, experiment, or other empirical procedure can discredit the theory. The falsifiability criterion is intuitively appealing, and, indeed, we do not accept a theory as scientific if it is compatible with all conceivable observations or data; scientific theories must have empirical content.
But as a candidate for a criterion of demarcation, falsifiability is fraught with problems (see Gale 1979: 199–205 and Chalmers 1999: 87–103), among others, that it seems far too permissive. If creationists and other pseudoscientists are willing to name any possible observation, however improbable, as incompatible with their claims, then the criterion of falsifiability cannot be invoked to rule these claims out of science.
To argue in the manner that Fetzer does that creationism is not science, we first have to say what science is. Fetzer says that the aim of science is to discover laws of nature (p 38). Further, scientific knowledge is expected to meet standards of conditionality, testability, and tentativeness:
Scientific knowledge assumes forms that are conditional, testable, and tentative. The conditionality of scientific hypotheses and theories arises from characterizing what properties or events will occur in a world as permanent properties or causal effects of the presence of other properties or the occurrence of other events. Such knowledge has to be testable, where it must be possible to detect the presence or absence of reference properties or events-as-effects in order to subject those hypotheses and theories to empirical test. Moreover, scientific knowledge is tentative insofar as it is always subject to revision due to technological innovations, the acquisition of additional evidence, or the discovery of alternative hypotheses. (p 38)
Fetzer then considers some typical creationist claims — such as the sudden and recent appearance of the earth and life, including humans, in essentially their current form — and concludes that such claims cannot count as scientific hypotheses since they are asserted unconditionally, are untestable, and are held absolutely and not tentatively (p 38–9).
Surely, though, it is too narrow to say that the aim of science is to discover laws of nature. Much progress in science occurs when scientists produce detailed, well-confirmed explanations of singular phenomena, or localized clusters of phenomena, rather than the discovery of new general laws. For instance, geologists offer detailed explanations of the structure of the Swiss Alps in terms of complex processes of thrusting and folding. This thrusting and folding is further explained in terms of tectonic processes such as the relative movements of lithospheric plates. Of course, such explanations presume that, at considerable explanatory distance, the basic laws of chemistry and physics are operating as the ultimate explanations of geological processes. But the proximate explanations of geological events, such as the Alpine orogeny, neither invoke such laws nor reveal the existence of new ones.
What about Fetzer’s claim that central creationist claims are not made conditionally, that is, they do not specify particular conditions under which such events should be expected to occur? Some unquestionably scientific hypotheses seem to have been asserted unconditionally. Standard big bang cosmology postulates the initial singularity as an ultimate, unconditioned fact. The initial singularity is unconditioned because there are, by hypothesis, no conditions prior to the big bang.
As for testability, are creationist claims testable? If, contrary to fact, the fossil record contained trilobites, dinosaurs, mastodons, rabbits, eurypterids, and coelacanths all mixed together in no discernable order, and if all sedimentary rocks bore evidence of having been deposited in a single, recent, cataclysmic event, and if remains of a large wooden ship were found on top of Mount Ararat, then, surely, young-earth creationism could claim to be not only testable but confirmed. The problem with creationism (besides simple dishonesty) is not that it is untestable, but that it has an egregious record of failure.
Finally, tentativeness does not seem to be a virtue of science but of scientists, that is, it is not a virtue of theories themselves, but how they are held. Scientists are rightly expected to hold on to theories only so long as the evidence warrants, or at least permits, and not to cling to them dogmatically, come what may. Therefore, to say that creationist tenets are not held tentatively may be an accurate ad hominem against creationists, but is not an objection to creationism itself.
It is not that Fetzer is a bad philosopher; he is a very good philosopher. The problem is with philosophy, at least as it is still too often practiced. Philosophers like Kitcher are effective critics of creationism because they are willing to get down from philosophy’s high horse and get down into the trenches with creationists. Philosophy’s self-image, which Richard Rorty mocked as “the tribunal of pure reason,” has too often permitted philosophers, as would-be justices of the high court of pure reason, to refuse to soil their hands with the messy factual details. Too often they have theorized with vague, stereotypical, and ahistorical images of scientific practice, and this fed the illusion that science, and its practices of explanation and confirmation, admitted of neat packaging into simple, rigorous accounts. More historically sensitive studies of science, initiated by Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (which, of course, brought its own distinct problems), were supposed to change all this and prompt philosophers to adopt a far more nuanced, complex, and historically aware understanding of science, its history, and its practice. Fetzer’s book shows that there is still a long ways to go in this regard.
Though Fetzer misfires against creationism, his book contains a number of very interesting and enlightening discussions of questions in the philosophy of biology, such as whether evolution optimizes and whether species should be regarded as individuals, as a number of leading philosophers and evolutionary biologists have maintained. The book can be recommended just for its discussion of these points. Also, some readers may appreciate the fact that Fetzer ties creationism to larger political and ideological forces that provide the impetus for creationism as a social movement and prompt wealthy sympathizers to bankroll its organizations. Others may regard these sections as a distracting diatribe, and view Fetzer’s unabashed characterization of the Bush administration and corporate miscreants as “fascists” as irresponsible agitprop. (I personally hold that some elements of the religious right, especially defenders of so-called “dominion theology,” are quite accurately and appropriately described as “fascist.” See Hedges 2006 and Goldberg 2007).
In summary, then, far better critiques of creationism are available. The main lesson that Fetzer’s book teaches is that philosophy’s attempt to legislate rationality by deploying its admittedly awesome logical weaponry, is an enterprise that should have gone out with Duns Scotus. Logical acuity is not enough; you have to know what you are talking about.
References
Chalmers AF. 1999. What is This Thing Called Science? 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.Gale G. 1979. Theory of Science: An Introduction to the History, Logic, and Philosophy of Science. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Goldberg M. 2007. Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. New York: WW Norton.
Hedges C. 2006. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. New York: The Free Press.
Laudan L. 1988. The demise of the demarcation problem. In: Ruse M, editor. But is it Science? The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy. Buffalo (NY): Prometheus. p 337–50.
Kitcher P. 1982. Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.
Kitcher P. 2007. Living With Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pennock R. 1999. Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.
Ruse M. 1982. Darwinism Defended. Reading (MA): Addison-Wesley.
Sarkar S. 2007. Doubting Darwin? Creationist Designs on Evolution. Oxford: Blackwell.
Shanks N. 2004. God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Review: Saving Darwin
Karl Giberson is a prominent figure in the modern dialog between science and religion. He is a professor of physics at Eastern Nazarene College and the director of the Forum on Faith and Science at Gordon College. Giberson was also the founding editor of Science and Theology News and the editor-in-chief of Science and Spirit. His recent book Saving Darwin will enjoy a wide readership, and it will certainly challenge many, raising important questions about how science and Christianity are to be related. The book features a lively and witty writing style, and in particular, it is very personal. A lasting image I have is of Giberson telling his story of leaving home to attend college and bringing along his copies of Henry Morris’s The Genesis Flood and Many Infallible Proofs. I can relate completely with his "teenage fundamentalist" (p 3) phase of life, because I have traveled a nearly identical route (I offer my personal story in Lamoureux 2008: 332–66).
One of the best parts of the book is a summary of the history of the "Darwin wars" in America. Numerous longer and more detailed accounts exist of these encounters, but Giberson offers an accessible distillation of the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial, the 1981 Arkansas trial challenging a law calling for equal treatment of evolution and creation science in schools, and the recent Dover trial dealing with the teaching of "intelligent design". The book is also a historical examination of Darwin’s personal religious beliefs, revealing without any question that the famed naturalist wrestled mightily with the theological implications of his theory of evolution. Giberson correctly points out that the vicious character of nature (as seen with the Ichneumonidae) and personal tragedies (like the death of his beloved ten-year-old daughter Annie) were powerful factors leading Darwin away from theism and Christianity. However, and this is a minor quibble, Giberson understates the spiritual impact of nature upon Darwin. The "wondrous universe" and "wonderful contrivances for certain purposes in nature" led Darwin to fluctuate from his agnosticism late in life back to deistic, and maybe even theistic, moments (Barlow 1958: 92–3; Darwin 1888: 1: 304, 316).
In order to assist his Christian readers in coming to terms with evolution, Giberson offers an excellent description of evolution’s metaphysical status. He writes:
Biological evolution, in its pure form at least, is purely descriptive. It tells us, as best it can, what happened, like a video of an event. It does not pass judgment on whether the history it describes was good or bad, just as a video passes no judgment on the event it captures. (p 64)
In addition, throughout the book, Giberson respectfully decouples evolutionary theory from the dysteleological metaphysics and personal philosophical commitments of Carl Sagan, EO Wilson, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and other like-minded skeptics. As far as I am concerned, this categorical differentiation is absolutely essential in moving beyond the so-called evolution versus creationism debate. Evolution is a magnificent and fruitful scientific paradigm, but it is dead silent with regard to its metaphysical status, and caution is necessary to avoid conflating one’s personal beliefs, whether religious or antireligious, with this scientific theory.
As much as I enjoyed Giberson’s book, I do have one serious concern. The subtitle, "How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution," is regrettably inaccurate (it was the publisher’s subtitle, not that of the author). Let’s be frank: the anti-evolutionism in America is rooted in evangelical Christianity, and if anyone is going to assist this religious tradition (which by the way is my tradition; I’m a Baptist), then he or she must deal directly with the opening chapters of the Bible. Giberson points to a survey that reveals "over half the population of the United States accepts the biblical creation story," and then attempts to deal with this problem by stating that "this position is thoroughly at odds with almost all relevant scholarship of the past century" (p 6, his emphasis). An argument from authority will never be effective with evangelicals. In the study cited by Giberson, it was shown that 87% of evangelicals believe that the accounts of a six-day creation and Noah’s flood are "literally true, meaning it happened that way word-for-word." Solving the problem of anti-evolutionism in the nation requires dealing with the evangelical belief in concordism, the notion that the Bible reveals accurate scientific and historical facts in its opening chapters. And Giberson falls quite short on this issue. I doubt that many full-blooded, Bible-verse–memorizing, and Gospel-witnessing evangelicals will step away from their anti-evolutionism after reading Saving Darwin.
But Giberson’s book is an important one. Its personal story is courageous and honest. As a Christian, he is even willing to confess, "[M]y belief in God is tinged with doubts, and in my more reflective moments, I sometimes wonder if I am perhaps simply continuing along the trajectory of a childhood faith that should be abandoned" (p 155). Yet, as a physicist, Giberson is drawn back to faith by the universe. In a section entitled "A Brief History of Everything," he outlines surprising characteristics in cosmological evolution, and seven times he states that there is something remarkably "interesting" about these that eventually leads him to believe that "the universe is more than particles and their interactions" (p 220). And in his yearly pilgrimage to the Canadian wilderness, Giberson feels the spiritual impact of nature upon him. He asks, "If the evolution of our species was driven entirely by survival considerations, then where did we get our rich sense of natural aesthetics?" (p 209). Indeed, in many ways, Karl Giberson is Charles Darwin. Both are scientists grappling with faith and in awe of the "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful [that] have been, and are being, evolved." (Darwin 1964: 490).
References
Barlow N, editor. 1958. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–1882. London: Collins.Darwin C. 1964. On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Darwin F, editor. 1888. The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 3 vols. London: John Murray.
Lamoureux DO. 2008. Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution. Eugene (OR): Wipf and Stock.
RNCSE 29 (3)
Click "Print Edition Contents" for list of articles in the print edition.
Print Edition Contents: 29 (3)
NEWS
- Texas Science Standards and March Madness: Did We Win or Lose?
Steven Schafersman
As the dust settles, activists in Texas review the outcome of interactions between the hard-line antiscience faction and moderate board members. - Testimony Before the Texas State Board of
Education
Joshua Rosenau
NCSE's Public Information Project Director makes clear to the board the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed compromises to science education standards. - Collapse of a Texas Quote Mine
Jeremy Mohn
Much of the antiscience "evidence" in Texas relied on quote mining. Further analysis suggests that the quoter never read the original work, only misleading secondary sources. - Changes in the Texas State Science Standards
A summary of the various amendments and their dispositions. - McLeroy Under Scrutiny
Is the role of the chair of a state board of education to undermine science education? - The January Amendments
Steven Newton, Joshua Rosenau, and Eugenie C Scott
The first — but not the last — salvo of the attack on the science education dtandards produced by the science writing committee: an analysis. - Updates
News from California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Canada, and Turkey.
NCSE NEWS
- News from the Membership
What our members are doing to support evolution and oppose pseudoscience wherever the need arises. - New Faces at NCSE
Glenn Branch
Meet the new staff and say farewell to old friends. - NCSE Honors "Friends of Darwin" for 2005
Glenn Branch
We recognize outstanding efforts in promoting evolution. - The Kilosteve
Glenn Branch
Project Steve's 1000th "Steve" is Steven P Darwin.
MEMBERS' PAGES
- Facing Challenges to Evolution Education
A classic NCSE brochure from Molleen Matsumura that is still relevant to 21st-century anti-evolutionism. - Books: From NCSE's Supporters
These books show the breadth and depth of the science that supports evolution and that our Supporters practice. - NCSE On the Road
Check the calendar here for NCSE speakers.
SPECIAL FEATURE
- People & Places: Dayton,Tennessee
Randy Moore
Famous for the Scopes trial, Dayton has preserved numerous landmarks from the events in 1925.
BOOK REVIEWS
- Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond
by Paul F Lurquin and Linda Stone
Reviewed by Randy Moore - Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
by Donald R Prothero
Reviewed by Peter Dodson - Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul
by Kenneth R Miller
Reviewed by Andrea Bottaro - Rebel Giants
by David R Contosta
Reviewed by Sherrie Lyons - Adam's Ancestors: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Human Origins
by David N Livingstone
Reviewed by J David Pleins - God or Gorilla: Images of Evolution in the Jazz Age
by Constance Areson Clark
Reviewed by Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette - Why Evolution is True
by Jerry Coyne
Reviewed by Donald R Prothero - Trying Leviathan
by D Graham Burnett
Reviewed by Arthur M Shapiro - Worlds before Adam:The Reconstruction of
Geohistory in the Age of Reform
by Martin JS Rudwick
Reviewed by Paul D Brinkman
Dayton, Tennessee
Every July, throngs of tourists descend on tiny Dayton,Tennessee, to celebrate the Scopes Trial Play and Festival. This festival, which is sponsored by the Dayton Chamber of Commerce, includes a re-enactment of John Scopes's famous trial in 1925 for allegedly teaching evolution in the local public school. Although Scopes's trial accomplished nothing from a legal perspective (his conviction was set aside two years later by the Tennessee Supreme Court), it nevertheless remains the most famous event in the history of the evolution-creationism controversy.
John Scopes's famous trial was instigated by Dayton businessmen as a publicity stunt to attract investors to the area. As Congressman Foster Brown of Chattanooga noted, the trial was "not a fight for evolution or against evolution, but a fight against obscurity." Scopes's trial brought hundreds of visitors to Dayton, but within a week after the trial, virtually all of the spectators, street preachers, circus performers, and hucksters had left town, and Dayton returned to normal. Some people profited from the trial, but the long-term economic stimulus that the trial's instigators had sought never materialized. Several years after the trial, Bryan College opened in Dayton to honor the ideals of William Jennings Bryan, one of Scopes's prosecutors.
John Scopes's trial was held in the Rhea County Courthouse (Figure 1). The courthouse, an Italian villa-style building built in 1891, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976, and was restored with the completion of the Scopes Trial Museum in the courthouse basement in 1978. At the front of the famous courtroom is posted a page from the Congressional Record listing the Ten Commandments. In 2005, a Cessna Decosimo statue of William Jennings Bryan was unveiled outside the courthouse; this statue depicts Bryan in 1891, when he began his Congressional career, and when the courthouse was built.
Scopes Trial Landmarks
Visitors to Dayton will find a number of sites that played important roles during the Scopes Trial. Thanks largely to the efforts of Bryan College Professor Emeritus Richard Cornelius, many of these sites have been preserved and marked with "Scopes Trial Trail" plaques (designated with an asterisk in the list below). A map of Scopes Trial sites with a complete legend can be found at http://www.bryan.edu/1990.html.
The Rhea County Courthouse and Scopes Trial Museum (Figure 1) is in the center of Dayton. Scopes's trial was held in the second-floor courtroom,which still contains several items from the famous trial (for example, the judge's desk and dais rail).*
FE Robinson's home on the corner of 3rd and Market Streets was the home of "The Hustling Druggist," who helped initiate the Scopes Trial. It was occupied by photographers during the proceedings.*
Darwin Cunnyngham home on Market Street housed journalists during the Scopes Trial.
McKenzie Law Office, which is adjacent to the Robinson home,was formerly used by Jim McKenzie, the nephew of JG McKenzie and grandson of Ben McKenzie. In 2007, Jim McKenzie was a judge in the Rhea Family Court.*
WC Bailey's boardinghouse on the northeastern corner of 4th and Market Streets was where John Scopes lived when he worked in Dayton. Scopes's father, journalist Bugs Baer, and briefly the chimpanzee Joe Mendi also stayed at the house during Scopes's trial.*
AM Morgan home at the southwest corner of 7th and the alley was where journalist HL Mencken lived during the Scopes Trial. After Scopes's trial, Morgan was a founder of Bryan College.
Rhea County High School (southwest of Dayton) was where John Scopes taught and coached in 1924–1925. Bryan College used the building from 1930–1935.*
Ballard/Bailey house at the northwest corner of 3rd and Church Streets was where chimpanzee Joe Mendi stayed during the Scopes Trial after being evicted from Bailey's boardinghouse.
Luke Morgan home, located at the southwest corner of 2nd and Walnut Streets, is where Clarence Darrow and his wife Ruby stayed during the Scopes Trial. Luke Morgan, a former student of John Scopes, testified during the trial.
Morgan Furniture Company on Market Street housed reporters during the Scopes Trial. The business has been open since 1909.*
Bailey Hardware housed more than 100 reporters during the Scopes Trial. Until recently the building — on Market Street between 1st and Main — housed an antique store.*
Thomison Hospital, Wilkey Barbershop, and Richard Rogers Pharmacy were all in this area. Rogers worked at Robinson's Drug Store during the Scopes Trial, and later opened a pharmacy here. West of Rogers Pharmacy was the Wilkey Barbershop. On May 19, 1925, barbers Virgil Wilkey and Thurlow Reed staged a fake fight at the courthouse with George Rappleyea to promote the upcoming Scopes Trial. Above Rogers Pharmacy was a hospital operated by Walter Agnew Thomison, whose father,Walter F Thomison, was the attending physician at William Jennings Bryan's death. A sign for Thomison's office remains on the wall of the building near the intersection of Main and Market Streets.
Hicks Law Office, located in the second lot from the southeast corner of Main and Market Streets, was used by Scopes prosecutors Herbert and Sue Hicks.
Robinson's Drug Store was where several of Dayton's businessmen devised the Scopes Trial. Adjacent to the drug store was the three-story Aqua Hotel,where John Neal, John Raulston, Arthur Hays, Dudley Malone, and Clarence Darrow stayed, met, or ate during the trial.*
Cumberland Presbyterian Church was built two years after the Scopes Trial; FE Robinson was a member of that church. When Clarence Darrow returned to Dayton after the Scopes Trial and saw this church, he commented,"I guess I didn't do much good here after all." The church no longer is affiliated with the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination.
First United Methodist Church was where William Jennings Bryan made his last public appearance. During Scopes's trial, the church at this site — the northwest corner of California Avenue and Market Street — was a Southern Methodist church.*
Richard Rogers home was where William Jennings Bryan and his entourage stayed during and after the Scopes Trial. Bryan died in his sleep in the Rogers' home on July 26, 1925. Only the retaining wall of the property is as it was in 1925.*
AP Haggard, the father of Scopes prosecutor Wallace Haggard, built his home across the street from the Richard Rogers home.*
Walter F Thomison built this home for Ella Darwin, his 16–year-old wife. Thomison's house is now called Magnolia House.*
Broyles–Darwin home is on the National Historic Register and housed reporters during the Scopes Trial. SD Broyles, who built the house in 1861,was the first resident of the village in 1820.*
Cedar Hill, the first hospital in Dayton,was built in 1929 by Walter Agnew Thomison. The building was used by Bryan College from 1932–1938 and 1967–1984.*
Bryan College was opened in 1930 as a memorial to Scopes prosecutor William Jennings Bryan. The campus includes several exhibits related to the Scopes Trial, and several of the college's founders were involved in the trial.*
Dayton Coal & Iron Company is a former mining operation that was managed by George Rappleyea, an instigator of the Scopes Trial. The land is now a recreational area, but coke ovens remain visible. Blast furnaces of the Dayton Coal and Iron Company were at this site, which now is covered by sports fields.
St Genevieve's Academy at 449 Delaware Road was where some children of Dayton Coal and Iron Company employees were educated before the Scopes Trial. Today the school building — which was built in 1891 — houses Fehn's 1891 Restaurant.
The Mansion was an 18-room house renovated by George Rappleyea to house several members of the defense team during the Scopes Trial. The house, which was atop a knoll overlooking the furnaces and company store of the Dayton Coal and Iron Company, had been vacant for more than a decade. Before he moved into the Morgans' home, Clarence Darrow stayed at the Mansion, and it was at the Mansion that Darrow and Kirtley Mather prepared for Darrow's questioning of William Jennings Bryan. In Inherit the Wind, several of the participants stayed at a hotel named "The Mansion".
Buttram Cemetery just outside Dayton is where many of the participants in the Scopes Trial are buried.
Dayton Drive-In Theater, which was 2.5 miles north of Dayton,was the site of the US premiere of Inherit the Wind.McLeroy Under Scrutiny
As the final vote on the proposed revision of the Texas state science standards approached, the Austin American-Statesman (2009 Mar 8) offered a profile of the chair of the Texas state board of education, avowed creationist Don McLeroy. Describing his conversion to fundamentalism as a dental student, the profile explained, "He is now a young-earth creationist, meaning that he believes God created earth between 6 000 and 10 000 years ago," quoting him as saying, "When I became a Christian, it was whole-hearted ... I was totally convinced the biblical principles were right, and I was totally convinced that it could be accurate scientifically." Particularly important to McLeroy is the biblical tenet that humans were created in the image of God.
David Hillis of the University of Texas, Austin, told the newspaper, "McLeroy's amendments are not even intelligible. I wonder if perhaps he wants the standards to be confusing so that he can open the door to attacking mainstream biology textbooks and arguing for the addition of creationist and other religious literature into the science classroom." He added, "If Chairman McLeroy is successful in adding his amendments, it will be a huge embarrassment to Texas, a setback for science education and a terrible precedent for the state board's overriding academic experts in order to further their personal religious or political agendas. The victims will be the schoolchildren of Texas, who represent the future of our state."
Preparing for the March 25–27 board meeting at which the final vote on the standards was expected, McLeroy armed himself with "a large binder that is adorned on the front with a picture of Albert Einstein" and contains "numerous passages from books — such as [Kenneth R] Miller's and others on evolutionary theory — and articles that he plans to use as ammunition in the fight this month over what should be in the state's science standards." One page from his binder, the American-Statesman reported, shows a diagram of the fossil record from a book by Miller, with McLeroy's gloss, "What do we see?" 'Sudden appearance' of species." Miller replied, "That diagram shows evolution. If he thinks it says evolution does not occur, he is dead wrong. It's really quite the opposite."
With Texans still reeling from the American-Statesman's profile of McLeroy, Texas Citizens for Science disclosed that McLeroy endorsed a bizarre creationist screed, Robert Bowie Johnson Jr's Sowing Atheism: The National Academy of Sciences' Sinister Scheme to Teach Our Children They're Descended from Reptiles (Annapolis [MD]: Sowing Light Books, 2008) — aimed, of course, at Evolution, Creationism, and Science, issued by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine in February 2008 to general acclaim (see RNCSE 2008 Jan/Feb; 28 [1]: 14). McLeroy, however, praised Sowing Atheism for showing "how the NAS attempts to seduce the unwitting reader by providing scanty empirical evidence but presented with great intellectual bullying — both secular and religious."
In a March 18, 2009, post on its blog, the Texas Freedom Network summarized the themes of the book — "Scientists are 'atheists.' Parents who want to teach their children about evolution are 'monsters.' Pastors who support sound science are 'morons'" — and pointedly asked, "Is that the sort of message Chairman Don McLeroy and his cohorts on the State Board of Education have in mind for Texas science classrooms if they succeed in their campaign to shoehorn 'weaknesses' of evolution back into the science curriculum standards?" Mavis Knight, a member of the Texas State Board of Education who supports the integrity of science education, wryly commented to the Dallas Observer (2009 Mar 18), "So much for neutrality in the chairman's position."
NCSE Honors "Friends of Darwin" for 2005
Every year, NCSE honors a few exceptional people for their support of evolution education and/or their service to NCSE. The "Friend of Darwin" awards are proposed by the staff and approved by the board at its annual meeting; the recipients for the award for a given year are thus selected in the spring of the following year. NCSE usually arranges for the awards to be presented to their recipients by their family, colleagues, and friends, so it often takes a while before a public announcement is possible. Here, finally, are the Friends of Darwin for 2005.
Ed Barber served as the director of the college and trade department for the publisher WW Norton and Company, where he is now a senior editor. NCSE Supporter Laurie R Godfrey writes that Barber "took great pleasure in working with me on the first edition of Scientists Confront Creationism. Ed is a kind-hearted and knowledgeable editor; he has a sophisticated knowledge of evolutionary biology, having worked so closely and for so many years with one of my own mentors from Harvard, Stephen Jay Gould, among others. He was especially proud, I think, to have published a series of popular Gould books, including compilations of the articles that he wrote for Natural History magazine. Most of all, he knows how to help authors connect with the general public."
Fred Edwords is currently the leader of the United Coalition of Reason. He previously served as director of communications for the American Humanist Association, after having served as its executive director from 1984 to 1999 and as editor of its journal The Humanist from 1994 to 2006. Back in the heyday of creationism/evolution debates, Edwords was on the front lines, debating such creationist luminaries as Duane Gish and Henry M Morris of the Institute for Creation Research. As a result of his debate experiences, he cofounded and edited the journal Creation/Evolution from 1980 to 1991, originally published by the AHA but acquired by NCSE in 1991. He also served on NCSE's board of directors from 1982 to 1992. "Fred's knowledge, experience, and plain horse sense combined to make him a formidable ally in the evolution wars," commented NCSE's executive director Eugenie C Scott.
Jack Krebs, a high school teacher in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former president and current board member of Kansas Citizens for Science (http://www.kcfs.org), the grassroots organization that fought effectively for the integrity of science education in Kansas when the state board of education rewrote the state science standards to disparage the scientific status of evolution in 1999 and again in 2005. Always civil, always cogent, Krebs was tireless in his speaking and writing on behalf of the uncompromised teaching of evolution in the Sunflower State; thanks to his and KCFS's work, a scientifically appropriate and pedagogically responsible treatment of evolution was restored to the state science standards when moderates regained power on the board in 2001 and again in 2007.
Steve Rissing is professor of evolution, ecology, and organismal biology at the Ohio State University, and a member of the board of Ohio Citizens for Science (http://www.ohioscience.org), the grassroots organization that fought effectively for the integrity of science education in Ohio when the state board of education adopted "critical analysis" language in its state science standards in 2002 and then adopted a corresponding model lesson plan derived from creationist sources in 2004. Always concerned with the public understanding of science in general, he also played a major role in revamping the way introductory-level biology courses are taught at Ohio State, coauthored a debunking treatment of creationist myths about Haeckel for The American Biology Teacher, and contributed a bimonthly column about science to the Columbus Dispatch.
Carl Zimmer is the author of such popular books about evolution and related topics as Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, revised edition (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), which Scientific American's reviewer described as "as fine a book as one will find on the subject"; The Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins (New York: HarperCollins, 2005); Microcosm: E coli and the New Science of Life (New York: Pantheon, 2008), and the forthcoming textbook The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution (Greenwood Village [CO]: Roberts and Company, 2009). His honors include the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Science Journalism Award in 2004 and the National Academies Science Communication Award in 2007 for "his diverse and consistently interesting coverage of evolution and unexpected biology."
Michael Zimmerman is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of Biology at Butler University. In 2004, concerned about attempt to undermine the teaching of evolution in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, he recruited local members of the Christian clergy to endorse a statement affirming the compatibility of evolutionary science with their faith. So successful was the Clergy Letter Project that Zimmerman took it national; today, there are almost 12 000 signatories from Christian denominations, with hundreds in parallel projects for Unitarian Universalist clergy and rabbis. Zimmerman also organized the Evolution Weekend project, in which members of the clergy conduct events centering on evolution and faith on or around Darwin's birthday; over 1000 churches participated in 2009. He is also helping to connect scientists with members of the clergy who have questions about science.
Finally, special Friend of Darwin awards were conveyed to the eleven plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the seminal 2005 case establishing the unconstitutionality of teaching "intelligent design" creationism in the public schools — Tammy Kitzmiller, Bryan Rehm, Christy Rehm, Deborah Fenimore, Joel Lieb, Steven Stough, Beth Eveland, Cynthia Sneath, Julie Smith, Aralene "Barrie" D Callahan, and Frederick B Callahan — in recognition of their bravery in challenging the Dover Area School Board's policy of requiring a disclaimer about evolution to be read to students in Dover's high school. The awards were presented in 2007 by Kevin Padian, the president of NCSE's board of directors, at a gathering of the plaintiffs and their friends and supporters to watch Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, the NOVA documentary about the case.
We thank these and all NCSE members for their support of our organization and our mission. We cannot — and do not — do it alone!
Testimony Before the Texas State Board of Education
Mr Chairman, members of the board, thank you for the chance to speak with you about the draft science TEKS.
The science TEKS on the books now were given an F in a 2005 survey of state science standards by the politically conservative Thomas Fordham Institute, noting that "they produce breadth of assertion instead of depth of understanding."
The TEKS presented by your expert writing committees addressed many of those problems. For instance, they replaced inaccurate and misleading references to "strengths and weaknesses" with a more accurate description of the scientific process.
On behalf of the students, parents, teachers, and scientists represented by the National Center for Science Education, thank you for voting to uphold that decision. You showed the respect this body has for the expertise of Texan scientists and educators.
I am not alone in praising that decision. I am proud to present you with these letters and statements signed by over 60 scientific and educational societies, all thanking you for listening to the experts on your writing committees about leaving "weaknesses" out of the standards. I know of no such society opposing that decision.
I am confident you will show the same respect for these scientists' and teachers' concerns over some amendments which you passed in January.
Fifty-four societies, from the American Institute for Biological Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association to the Biotechnology Institute and the Society of Sedimentary Geology signed a statement drafted by NCSE urging you to remove and reject amendments which single out evolution for scrutiny beyond that applied to other scientific theories, or which inaccurately and misleadingly describing these ideas as scientifically controversial. We're especially concerned by references to "sudden appearance," which may sound confusingly similar to creationist rhetoric about "abrupt appearance" to the untrained ears of a student, just as references elsewhere to "arguments against universal common descent" may be taken as a call for creationist claims that go beyond the standards' clear statement about the limits of science.
I'd be happy to go into further details of my concerns about these amendments if you have any questions.
The National Center for Science Education and these many scientific societies urge the board to delay or reject outright any further amendments which have not been reviewed by your writing committees and the community of Texas scientists and educators. Do not be distracted by discredited creationist claims such as that microbes are irreducibly complex or that the Cambrian Explosion is inexplicable. Do not single out evolution or related concepts in geoscience for scrutiny beyond that given to every other scientific topic.
Texas students deserve a world-class education, and this revision process could move them toward that goal … or hold them back. Please, listen to the voices of scientists and educators, listen to the writing committees you chose, and restore and protect honest science in the TEKS.
[This statement was presented to the Texas state board of education on March 25, 2009.]
Texas Science Standards and March Madness
The revisions of my state's science standards (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, TEKS) by the State Board of Education (SBOE) are confusing and controversial. News articles following the March 25–27, 2009 meeting reported that the scientific community had succeeded in turning back proposals by the Discovery Institute (DI) and religious radicals on the SBOE that would have weakened science education. The DI and radical SBOE members, on the other hand, gleefully claimed a great victory in their blogs and reports. Who was right?
The correct answer is neither. The results were mixed: science education both won and lost. Texas Citizens for Science (TCS) worked during the past year with several partners — NCSE, the Texas Freedom Network, and several science and science education professors from Texas universities —to preserve the accuracy and reliability of science education in Texas during the state's science education standards adoption process. In the end, our efforts did not produce the results we wanted and that Texas's students deserved. It is important to examine why.
Political landscapes
The political situation in Texas is such that the religious right is very strong and controls the state Republican Party. The 15-member SBOE has seven members who are religiously conservative Republicans: these individuals are biblical literalists and creationists, including the board's chair Don McLeroy (appointed by a governor who shares his religious views). We have always had some of these on the state board, but right now there are seven of them, and they are well-organized, well-disciplined, and immune to embarrassment despite their frequent public expressions of ignorance, stupidity, and bigotry. If they pick up just a single additional vote — and they did for a variety of reasons — they can do whatever they want.
The science standards writing panels ultimately produced an excellent set of standards that should have been adopted without change, but the SBOE felt the need to modify them. The outcome of the process was that the scientific method standard and many of the standards that concern cosmic and biological evolution in the biology and earth and space science (ESS) standards were compromised. It is true that the very worst language was avoided, but only by very close 8–7 votes for which the majority disappeared when qualifying or debilitating substitute amendments — suggested as "compromises" — were proposed. Getting rid of the really antiscientific language was a victory, but it was only a partial victory. When their very worst antiscientific amendments failed, creationist members immediately came back with a new substitutes that were less obviously antiscience. Some of these passed.
The creationist SBOE members voted together as a bloc every time. The eight pro-science members — five Democrats and three Republicans — did not vote as a pro-science bloc. Most of the pro-science board members are friendly, moderate-to-conservative individuals who believe in collegiality, cooperation, and compromise, so most were willing to accept the weaker but still flawed substitute amendments. I could sense the emotional compulsion in some board members to vote with a colleague for a less egregious amendment and to find some compromise on controversial issues. The antiscience SBOE members exploited this quality again and again.
The pro-science Republican members may have felt more pressure to compromise (they were being politically assaulted by their own party and by thousands of messages, letters, and phone calls from their fundamentalist and creationist constituents). Several had been attacked in their primaries — a political tactic that had increased the number of creationists on the board from four in 2003 to seven in 2008. Sometimes compromise is good, but compromise on science education standards should not result in students' being forced to learn inaccurate and misleading lessons about scientific knowledge.
The antiscience BSOE members were able to manipulate the process by passing a rule that the pro-science members probably thought was inconsequential: requiring votes on amendments without members' being allowed to talk to their science experts first or hearing scientific testimony during board debate. Thus, pro-science BSOE members — who were not scientists themselves — were forced to vote without understanding what they were voting on. Thus, the board approved several antiscience amendments in January and March.
I explained this problem to pro-science SBOE members and recommended that they always vote "no" to any amendment that the antiscience side proposed, but their plan was to seek a compromise on amendments and standards that were controversial within the board. The antiscience proposals ultimately succeeded because their supporters falsely claimed that their amendments were approved by "science experts" and scholarly publications, and in some cases presented their amendments in a form that did not reveal that vital subject matter was being removed.
Furthermore, the amendments ranged over the map. One SBOE member proposed thirteen bad amendments to ESS in approximately 20 minutes. She talked so fast and so confidently — repeatedly referring to her "scientific experts" who were actually "intelligent design" (ID) creationists — that she managed to convince fellow board members to pass five of them.
By far the worst amendment was to standard (3)(A) (formerly the "strengths and weaknesses" provision), which discusses the scientific method. The original proposal by the science writing panels said simply, "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observation testing." The SBOE changed this to:
in all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing, including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations, so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.
The word "critique" was added to suggest that scientific explanations should be criticized by students, even though it is redundant and inappropriate, since "critique" correctly used means "analyze and evaluate", not criticize. Even worse, the phrase "all sides of evidence of those scientific explanations" awkwardly and inaccurately suggests that all scientific explanations have "sides" when in fact most do not, especially at the level science is taught in high school. The new words were deliberately added, of course, to attack biology textbooks in the future if they do not include "critiques" of evolution or present the bogus "evidence" that creationists mistakenly believe undermines or refutes evolution.
Curricular "time bombs"
SBOE chairman Don McLeroy said he would warn publishers to be sure to cover "all sides" of culturally controversial issues, such as evolution, as specified by these new standards or risk having their textbooks rejected. If SBOE members find "problems" with the books, the publishers could also be told to fix the "errors" to avoid rejection. What will publishers do when faced with this unethical and ugly extortion? If history is a guide, they will make whatever changes are necessary to make sure their textbooks are adopted in Texas or lose many millions of dollars in sales.
Similar time bombs inserted into the proposed biology standards by the SBOE are the requirements to:
analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record;
analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell; and
analyze and evaluate the evidence regarding formation of simple organic molecules and their organization into long complex molecules having information such as the DNA molecule for self-replicating life.
To many, these new statements may be innocuous, but they were inserted to encourage publishers to include information in biology textbooks that may undermine evolution education and to punish publishers if they do not.
The first one was inserted because SBOE creationists believe that a "sudden appearance" of fossils means they were specially created, rather than reflecting an imperfect fossil record. SBOE members, using misinformation from the DI, will try to force publishers to suggest to students that this pattern in the fossil record is a weakness of evolution. Ideally, publishers could satisfy this standard by including accurate and reliable information about all rates and modes of fossil evolution, including gradual fossil evolution and transitional fossils, but the SBOE still can veto these texts.
Two standards were inserted to attempt to force publishers to tell students that the cell and information-carrying molecules are so complex that evolution cannot explain them (implying that some extranatural process is necessary). Cells and information-carrying molecules are complex and their chemical processes are not totally explained, but that gives no license to incorporate extranatural processes into the science curriculum. Again, the standard will try to make publishers include bogus or misleading information about complex processes and molecules that antiscience members believe demonstrates the inadequacy of evolution, and this could pose problems for publishers in the future.
Only one time bomb was inserted in the new ESS standards. This was a requirement to discuss the complexity of life in the origin-of-life standard (we can be relieved that the origin-of-life standard itself was not removed). Antiscience SBOE members did remove requirements that specify that the universe is about 14 billion years old and that discuss the rate and diversity of evolution of fossils. However, since two relevant standards require discussion of the age of the universe and the evolution of fossils, these will not hinder textbook authors and publishers from including this information in ESS textbooks. Furthermore the YECs on the board apparently overlooked standard (7)(C), which mentions "earth's approximate 4.6–billion-year history"; it remained unchanged. In light of the other compromises they racked up, the creationist members probably could have changed (7)(C) to "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" if they had just tried.
Finally, a Democratic SBOE member added a requirement to the Environmental Systems standards to "analyze and evaluate different views on the existence of global warming", but this time bomb will backfire, too. Textbook authors and publishers of environmental science textbooks now may have to include common arguments against climate change, all of which are easily refuted by scientists (see "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic"; available on-line at http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/).
Holding our own … for now
Textbook authors and publishers should still be able to use the new standards to write good textbooks. Despite all the problems with the process, the numerous substandard standards do not contain explicit requirements to include antiscientific information, so they do not force publishers to put inaccurate or unreliable science textbooks up for adoption — although they allow and even solicit it. For example, the requirement to "analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations" and to examine "all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations" can be easily met by textbook publishers and authors by (1) truthfully stating that there is only one side to most scientific explanations and all that are covered in a high school biology course; (2) pointing out that the standard specifically limits the required examination to "scientific" evidence and explanations, excluding antiscientific information or misrepresentations that some SBOE members and the DI claims should be included; and (3) interpreting the "all sides of…scientific explanations" requirement to mean a much broader discussion of evolution than they normally would present. Perhaps they could include discussions of evolutionary psychology, and the evolution of human intelligence or of religious belief, all of which do indeed have several scientific "sides". By following these guidelines, textbook publishers, authors, and teachers can successfully prepare textbooks and perform instruction that are completely scientific.
The first problem we face in Texas is that content in biology and ESS textbooks is no longer controlled by the Texas science education standards, but by the ability of textbook publishers and authors to stand up to the political whims of members of the SBOE. The second problem is that science textbooks come up for adoption in 2011, so scientists and science advocates will have to return to Austin and the SBOE to resist attempts to weaken science education. The composition of the SBOE may be different then, so attempts to damage science books may fail as in 2003. But if there are no changes, there will be another close fight.
The third and worst problem we face in Texas is that the science TEKS are also the basis for classroom curriculum and statewide end-of-course exams. Science teachers were already operating in a climate of uncertainty, and their situation is now even worse. They may downgrade their emphasis of or even hesitate to teach the topics that the SBOE has made controversial, for fear of being criticized and reprimanded. The Texas Education Agency — the state's Department of Education — is influenced by antiscience activists. Their end-of-course biology exams may contain questions focused on alleged problems with evolution and the history of life, not test whether the students have accurate and reliable knowledge of this field. Teachers and students will be forced to prepare for this pseudoscientific nonsense if they want to pass the exams.
The very bad situation in Texas will not change until there is a change in political leadership in this state. Science education and many other instructional disciplines have been politicized to an alarming extent in Texas (currently, the social studies standards are being subjected to the same attacks that science and English just endured). Under the new standards, students in Texas will receive a blighted science education and fall further behind their peers in other states and other countries. We science advocates still have much work to do.
The Kilosteve
With the addition of Steve #1000 on February 12, 2009, NCSE's Project Steve attained the kilosteve mark. A tongue-in-cheek parody of the long-standing creationist tradition of amassing lists of "scientists who doubt evolution" or "scientists who dissent from Darwinism," Project Steve mocks such lists by restricting its signatories to scientists whose first name is Steve. (Cognates are also accepted, such as Stephanie, Esteban, Istvan, Stefano, or even Tapani — the Finnish equivalent.) About 1% of the United States population possesses such a first name, so each signatory represents about 100 potential signatories. ("Steve" was selected in honor of the late Stephen Jay Gould, a Supporter of NCSE and a dauntless defender of evolution education.)
Steve #1000 was announced at the Improbable Research press conference and crowned at the Improbable Research show, both held on February 13, 2009, as part of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. NCSE's executive director Eugenie C Scott and Steve Mirsky, long-time writer, columnist, and podcaster for Scientific American, presented a commemorative plaque to — of all people — Steven P Darwin, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and director of the herbarium at Tulane University. In a February 14, 2009, press release (available on-line at http://ncse.com/news/2009/02/steve-darwin-is-steve-1000-004308), Darwin commented, "This is the first time that being a Darwin — or a Steve — has paid off!" Videos of the press conference and the award ceremony are available on-line at NCSE's YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/NatCen4ScienceEd), and a Scientific American podcast is available online at http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=count-on-steves-to-defend-darwin-09-02-20.
The fact that Steve #1000 hails from Louisiana is particularly ironic, since the state recently enacted a law that threatens to open the door for creationism and scientifically unwarranted critiques of evolution to be taught in public school science classes. When a policy implementing the law was drafted, a provision that prohibited the use of materials that teach creationism in the public schools was deleted. Recently, the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology announced that, due to the anti-evolution law, it would not hold its 2011 conference in New Orleans; a spokesperson for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau told the weekly New Orleans City Business (2009 Feb 23) that the city would lose about $2.7 million as a result of SICB's decision. (For background, see RNCSE 2008 Mar/Apr; 28 [2]: 8–11; 2008 July/Aug; 28 [4]: 4–10; 2009 Mar/Apr; 29 [2]: 5–7.)
Although the idea of Project Steve is frivolous, the statement is serious. It reads
Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to 'intelligent design,' to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools."
Currently, there are 1088 signatories to Project Steve, including 100% of eligible Nobel laureates (Steven Weinberg and Steven Chu), 100% of eligible members of President Obama's Cabinet (Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy), at least ten members of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors of widely used textbooks such as Molecular Biology of the Gene, Psychology: An Evolutionary Approach, and Introduction to Organic Geochemistry, and the authors of popular science books such as A Brief History of Time, Why We Age, and Darwin's Ghost. When last surveyed in February 2006, 54% of the signatories work in the biological sciences proper; 61% work in related fields in the life sciences.
Additionally, Project Steve appeared in Steven Pinker's recent book, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (New York: Viking, 2007). Pinker, himself a single-digit Steve, described it as "the most formidable weapon in the fight against neo-creationism today," adding, "Part satire, part memorial to Stephen Jay Gould, the project maintains a Steve-O-Meter (now pointing past 800) and has spun off a T-shirt, a song, a mascot (Professor Steve Steve, a panda puppet), and a paper in the respected scientific journal Annals of Improbable Research called 'The Morphology of Steve' (based on the T-shirt sizes ordered by the signatories)."
For further information about Project Steve, visit http://ncse.com/taking-action/project-steve.
Review: Adam's Ancestors
Some trips down memory lane in the creationism/evolution debate can be enlightening, others disturbing.
In a previous volume,
Livingstone enlightened us by
uncovering the early conservative
Christian backers of Darwin, those
he dubbed Darwin's Forgotten
Defenders (Grand Rapids [MI]:
Eerdmans, 1987). In his current
exploration, Livingstone takes us
into the heterodox and racially-charged
world of Adam's preadamite ancestors. If we
thought we understood the history
of the creationism/evolution
debate, Livingstone once again
upends the standard categories to
reveal new fault lines in the bitter
battles over the Bible, theology,
and science.
Livingstone begins by turning the clock back to the age of heresy to highlight the provocative views of Isaac La Peyrère. Peyrère met the rising tide of the expanding European knowledge of ancient civilizations and the increasing encounters with non-European populations by suggesting that there were men before Adam. If the Chinese and Egyptians were right to say civilization is far older than Adam and if the bewildering array of races on earth suggest colors and customs unknown to Noah's sons, then logically the Bible's story is limited in time and scope. By suggesting there were men before Adam, Peyrère managed to reconcile the Bible and modern knowledge while earning the disdain of many a high churchman.
Thus, the preadamite heresy was born. Ironically, Peyrère's heresy would go on to become an orthodox leitmotif in the 19th and 20th centuries. Livingstone's story is designed to tell us how this topsy-turvy state of affairs came to dominate the discussion of human origins before and after Darwin.
The debates that unfolded in the 18th and 19th centuries hinged on how, scripturally-speaking, to account for the world's diverse races. Some said the climate was the shaping force. Others said God created different races for different places. Some suggested there were multiple Adams, while others claimed there were two creations — the creation of the preadamites in Genesis 1 and the creation of the Adamites in Genesis 2. Whether the preadamites died off before Adam or coexisted became a theological concern. Matters of Original Sin and the dangers of race mingling were at stake. In each case, the effort was made to reconcile Genesis with the new knowledge of world geography and global cultures. Peyrère's heresy was seed cast on fertile soil.
Behind the clever theological schemes, Livingstone reminds us, there was a hellish reality. In many cases, theological gamesmanship went hand-in-hand with the global slave trade and imperial adventures. Defenders of the faith fell rather easily into ranking the races, with white Europeans always coming out on top of the divine pecking order. Whether the theologians spoke in terms of climate, diverse centers of creation, or even common descent from Adam, invariably blacks and other groups trailed behind white Europeans in spiritual worth.
Against this backdrop, the major players of the day can be seen in a new light. Louis Agassiz's distinct zones of God's creation appear awfully racist, whereas the Darwinian view of the common descent of humans and apes looks far less racist and much more egalitarian.
By this point, Peyrère's heresy was here to stay.
After Darwin, some who wished to link the Bible and science would speculate about whether Adam evolved from his preadamite ancestors. Eventually, many Catholics would say that the human body did evolve, but that the human soul takes up residence in a fetus during the gestation period. In other post-Darwinian theological circles, the racist angle would reassert itself as writers worried over whether Adam's white heirs should intermarry with the brutish preadamite blacks, thereby diluting Caucasian spiritual purity.
It is hard to conceive of all the useless theological ink spilled in the name of preadamic racism. Yet, lest the secular evolutionist begin to gloat over Darwin's triumph, Livingstone reminds us that the secularists of the period could play the multiple centers of origin game with similar racist intent. The schools of anthropology of the 19th century are replete with racial invective that parallels the odiousness of preadamite religious rhetoric. Theological references to Adam and preadamite are replaced by talk of races as "varieties" and "species." Somehow, in all the secularist charts, portraits, and cranial measurements, primitive blacks stood several notches below the superior white.
One need not have been religious to be racist in the 19th and 20th centuries. True, there were voices, like some abolitionists, who rose above the devilish din, but Livingstone's tawdry tale (well-told) airs the dirty laundry that wafted on both sides of the creation- evolution divide.
Livingstone's richly detailed, amply illustrated work stands as a warning to a religion that loses its ethical moorings and a science that betrays basic human dignity. This is an unsettling book. The skeletons are out of the scientific and theological closet. Will we heed the lessons Livingstone has set out for us?
Review: Evolution and Religious Creation Myths
Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond is meant to arm "the public with facts about the differences between myth and science, fiction and theory." The book is intended as a college textbook; it contains a glossary, sections titled "Things to think about" at the end of each chapter, and an appendix of experiments for readers to perform.
Evolution and Religious
Creation Myths is generally well-written
and addresses many of the
topics that are integral to the evolution/
creationism controversy.
The book is laid out as follows.
Chapter 1 ("Creationism and intelligent design: The evolution of an idea") covers familiar ground — for example, that there are many different creation myths, that "intelligent design" (ID) is neither science nor a new idea, and that many creationists selectively claim that evolution is "just a theory" (that is, they do not make such claims about the germ theory of disease). This section of the chapter concludes with "... God as creator is right as a matter of religious faith, and evolution by natural selection is right as a matter of science" (p 14). Many readers will question this claim because it is often impossible to separate creation myths from the value systems they support. For example, conservative Christians often defend their values by defending their conception of how God created the universe; Answers in Genesis's $27-million Creation Museum is a monument to how many people link their value systems to a creation myth. That museum, which blames the teaching of evolution for societal ills such as divorce, school violence, and pornography, was visited by more than 360 000 patrons during its first year of operation.
Chapter 2 ("What is evolutionary biology and where is it coming from?") discusses some of the history of evolutionary thought while focusing on Buffon, Lamarck, Lyell, Darwin, and Wallace. The stories in this chapter will be familiar to RNCSE's readers. Although there is a considerable discussion of finches, the authors do not make clear that "Darwin's finches" were not mentioned in the first edition of On the Origin of Species, and became an icon of biology only after David Lack published Darwin's Finches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1947). I was disappointed that there was no mention of Lyell's struggles with science and faith.
Chapter 3 ("Creationist purpose and irreducible complexity rebutted") discusses several topics challenged by creationists, including radiometric dating, molecular biology and biochemistry, and the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the eye, bacterial flagella, and the immune system. The chapter concludes with discussions of whether ID and "creation science" are sciences, and whether ID-based research has been published in scientific journals. Again, the stories in this chapter will be familiar to most readers of RNCSE. There is no discussion of any of the court decisions that have addressed "creation science" and ID.
Chapter 4 ("The origins and evolution of Homo sapiens") discusses human evolution, a topic that frightens many creationists. The authors concisely discuss drift, the migration out of Africa, cultural evolution, and the abundance of fossil evidence supporting current views of human evolution. The authors also raise intriguing questions about our ancestors (for example, what caused the demise of Neanderthals?).
Chapters 5 ("The origins of life and the cosmos as evolutionary themes") and 6 ("Evolution of the DNA world and the chance events that accompanied it") are the most interesting parts of the book. The authors do an excellent job of discussing — among other things — abiogenesis (including the difficulties with the experiments of Stanley Miller), the RNA world, the appearance of genetic information, the DNA world, and the evolution of eukaryotes. The authors also contrast probabilistic arguments with teleological ones, noting that the teleology that underlies ID and other types of creationism places these beliefs at odds with all of science, not just evolution.
Chapter 7 ("The dangers of creationism") completes the book with discussions of the political ramifications of evolution and creationism (for example, how conservatives often appeal to the anti-intellectualism of their constituents), the business of creationism, and the importance of a scientifically literate public. Again, the examples and stories will be familiar to readers of RNCSE. The authors note that the Discovery Institute had revenues of $4.1 million in 2003, but do not mention any of the other anti-evolution organizations (such as Answers in Genesis, the revenues of which far exceed those of the Discovery Institute).
Evolution and Religious Creation Myths has many strengths. However, some topics are tantalizingly incomplete. For example, despite the book's title, only about 10 pages are devoted to religious myths that are outside of biblical literalism.
The authors write, "back in those days, the State of Tennessee had banned evolution from its science curriculum ..." (p ix). In fact, Tennessee made it a crime for teachers in public schools (including universities) "to teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animal." That is, Tennessee (and, subsequently two other states — Arkansas and Mississippi) banned only the teaching of human evolution (it would have presumably been acceptable to discuss the evolution of cockroaches or turnips). Noting the legislative sensitivity to human evolution would have helped to place the chapter on human evolution into better context.
The authors correctly note, "Most professional scientists, even thought they are deeply irritated by all the attacks against evolution, have remained largely silent in public forms, at least in forums that involve the general public" (p x). It would have been helpful to remind readers that it has usually been high school teachers (for example, John Scopes, Susan Epperson, and Don Aguillard) who have resisted creationists in courts, the most public of forums. The primary battlefield of the creationism/ evolution wars in the US educational system is the high school biology classroom, where surprisingly high percentages of teachers continue to include creationism in their courses.
Almost half of the adults in the United States believe that humans were created by a deity approximately 10 000 years ago and that evolution — the foundation of biology — is a myth. Evolution and Religious Creation Myths will help readers to respond to such nonsense.
Review: Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters
Arch-creationist Duane Gish proclaimed that fossils say "no!" to evolution. Creationists perennially make bizarre claims about the supposed deficiencies of the fossil record. This book is motivated by the challenge of "intelligent design" (ID) and the recent Kitzmilller v. Dover Area School Board case decided in federal court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Don Prothero of Occidental College is a very good vertebrate paleontologist. He has written a book to provide definitive resources on exactly what the fossil record shows.
Prothero is equal to his task. He is unusually broad in his background and experiences. Although he is an expert on Late Cenozoic ungulate mammals, he has also published on planktonic microfossils. He is a wily veteran of successful debates with Gish. Like Stephen Jay Gould, he demonstrates familiarity with the Bible, and quotes it frequently to advantage. I am in awe of his ability to read the New Testament in Greek. He is well versed in the history of science and religion and makes it clear that he sees no necessary conflict between science and religion.
The book is divided into two parts. Part I (141 pages) examines exactly what we understand by evolution. Prothero considers the nature of science itself, and the relationship of evolution to biology. The biological material brims with up-to-date content, including a nice discussion of the significance of evo-devo and of hox genes. Very useful is the section aptly titled "Evolution happens all the time!" (p 113–8). He reviews contemporary examples of evolutionary change such as sockeye salmon in Washington state, three-spine sticklebacks in Alaska and Norway, codfishes in the Western Atlantic, and pesticide resistance in insects. He ends this section with a lovely quote from entomologist Martin Taylor, lamenting of farmers in the southern United States: "These people are trying to ban the teaching of evolution while their own cotton crops are failing because of evolution" (p 118).
In the chapter on systematics and evolution, Prothero hammers the point that the course of evolution is not progressive as conceptualized in such outmoded historical concepts as the scale of nature or the great chain of being but rather takes the form of a bush. Creationist insistence on missing links depends on a metaphor scientists (but not necessarily journalists) have long since discarded. He fully develops concepts of cladistics that systematists universally rely upon today.
Part II (215 pages) is the heart of the matter, a survey of the major features of the fossil record from the origins of life to the appearance of humans. I found chapter 7 ("Cambrian 'explosion' — or 'slow fuse'?") quite useful. To Darwin and his contemporaries it appeared that the geological record showed no evidence of life for an immense interval of Precambrian time, and then all of a sudden life appeared in profusion during the Cambrian Period. Since the 1940s there has been a steady increase in discoveries of soft-bodied fossils and microfossils from the Precambrian, including the famous metazoan radiation of the late Precambrian, with its now world-wide Ediacaran faunas. It is also clear that the profusion of hard-bodied fossils such as trilobites, brachiopods, and sponge-like archaeocyathids that are so apparent in rocks came about 25 million years after the beginning of the Cambrian, and was preceded by a reasonably diverse fauna of small shelly fossils that had long been ignored. Thus the Cambrian explosion turns out to be more apparent than real, and another creationist canard bites the dust!
At one time the finest example of an early tetrapod that we could use was Ichthyostega, an unequivocal amphibian. Tiktaalik roseae, described only in 2006, is as sweet an intermediate fossil as can be imagined. Although just on the fish side of the transition, this "fishapod" from the Canadian Arctic has the flattened skull of a tetrapod and a neck, unheard of in a fish. The forefins show a humerus, radius, and ulna, but bear fin-rays, not fingers. Early tetrapods such as Acanthostega and Tulerpeton show that seven or eight fingers preceded the familiar tetrapod pattern of five fingers.
The book proceeds seriatim through seminal recent discoveries in tetrapods, amniotes, dinosaurs to birds and then to mammals. Prothero points out that the evolution of horses, elucidated since the 1870s, remains one of the finest demonstrations of evolutionary change over time. Horse evolution traced over 50 million years exhibits bushiness and lack of directedness. Similar cases can be made for rhinoceros, camels, tapirs, artiodactyls, and elephants. Whale evolution has been clarified by the recent discovery of important fossils from Pakistan, especially Ambulocetus, the Eocene "walking whale", and Rodhocetus, the proto-whale with the ankle of an artiodactyl. Finally, the book documents the richness of the hominin fossil record, which has been substantially enhanced by new finds of the past decade. Prothero demonstrates atavisms in humans (including several arresting photographs of fleshy tails) that make no sense in terms of "intelligent design", but which are easily understandable as developmental anomalies revealing our evolutionary antecedents.
The book is beautifully illustrated with photos and drawings of fossils, and phylogenetic diagrams. It is enlivened with topical cartoons skewering creationists. The book is very valuable as a demonstration of the quality of the fossil record, which has improved dramatically in the past decade. It is a fine resource for those whose knowledge of either paleontology or evolutionary biology can use a little dusting off and polishing. We often accuse creationists of using outdated arguments. Reading a book such as Prothero's will ensure that we do not do the same.
I do have a complaint, however. The book preaches to the converted. Its polemical tone can become wearying and may produce the unintended effect of nudging undecided readers in the wrong direction. Poorly disguising his contempt, Prothero's rhetoric is sometimes over the top, as when he refers to "hard working, dedicated, self-sacrificing biologists who spend years enduring harsh conditions in the field" in contrast to "creationists who sit in their comfortable homes and write drivel" (p 113). Please! The facts of paleontology stand on their own. They do not need to be undermined by rhetorical shenanigans.
Review: God or Gorilla
Images matter. Whether
through a political campaign's
choice of symbols, a news
headline's metaphors, or a cartoonist's
deft exaggeration of a famous
face, visual images persist in popular
culture and influence public
reaction to ideas, people, and, yes,
science. Animals have long been
used to embody subtle messages — automobile brands chosen to
imply speed, or nicknames that
capture essential elements of personality — but few animals carry
such rich cultural baggage as nonhuman
primates. Don't "monkey"
around with or make a "monkey"
of me! As historian Constance
Areson Clark demonstrates in her
engaging comparison of cultural
and scientific images of evolution,
the image choices made by scientists,
anti-evolutionists, cartoonists,
museum curators, and the press all
helped to shape public debate during
the 1920s and 1930s and not
always in the direction intended.
The book's title might, at first glance, seem just another sensational use of such images, but, in fact, it simultaneously references both a central tract of the anti-evolution debate and the ambiguous personal attitudes of one of evolution's most visible defenders. Alfred Watterson McCann's 1922 book God — or Gorilla attacked paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn and challenged the accuracy of the "Hall of the Age of Man" in the American Museum of Natural History that Osborn headed. McCann's publication — one of many salvos in a publicity battle which, Clark points out, raged long before the trial of John T Scopes — targeted a staid and admired museum (a veritable castle of scientific prominence and prestige) and the wealthy and socially connected Osborn, who had been active in the debate against fundamentalists such as McCann, John Roach Straton, and William Jennings Bryan. Osborn was, however, a religious man, an elitist, and a supporter of eugenics. He publicly argued that evolution supported "Christian values" and demonstrated that humankind had always struggled for improvement, physically as well as spiritually, yet he privately expressed distaste for the "image of a simian ancestry." Such ambiguity, Clark points out, characterized the attitudes of many scientists at the time.
Clark skillfully analyzes the technical aspects of the debates (as science's understanding of human evolution was being refined and challenged), but her book holds interest outside the history of science because she also dissects the era's popular culture images of monkeys, chimpanzees, gorillas, and "cavemen" and analyzes strategies chosen or ignored by scientists in their efforts to defend evolution. A "contest among images" played out in the pages of newspapers and magazines, in radio talks, and in museum halls. Everyone — scientists and theologians, evolutionists and antievolutionists — had an agenda; all sought cultural supremacy of their ideas, sought to have their interpretation of life's origins, and of the appropriate delineation of the territory of science and religion, prevail in the public mind. The weapons in that battle continue to be exploited today — satire, ridicule, lampoonery, and photographic comparisons of "man" and "ape." As Clark notes, "the evolution debate was about so much more than the substance of science."
One complicating factor was the increasing complexity of the relevant biology, geology, paleontology, and anthropology. Even though institutions like the nonprofit news agency Science Service were being created to improve public communication, the scientific community's longstanding resistance to popularization for the masses hobbled these efforts. To reach large audiences required using the latest communications techniques like radio, while most scientists remained more comfortable with formats like formal lectures or museum exhibitions. Osborn himself could be dismissive of the very public he claimed to be addressing (he told his publisher that, in writing a popular book, he had "stooped to conquer"). Scientists mindful of the nuances in the evidentiary record would also carefully qualify their statements, while some opponents of evolution simply reduced the choice to one stark question — "God or gorilla?"
Clark offers perceptive analysis of the metaphors, cartoons, and illustrations (including human "pedigrees" and "trees" used in 1920s school biology texts) which peppered the evolution debate, but her book also poses a deeper question. Why did this particular scientific debate capture so much public attention? Certainly, the breakneck speed of technological and social change during the 1920s — automobiles, movies, radio, flappers, jazz — lent credibility to conservatives' anxiety that science disturbed the status quo but, as Clark emphasizes, the two sides also effectively constructed starkly different images of the past. Either human beings stood erect and dignified in the great chain of being, forged in God's image, or else they hunkered on the muddy ground alongside their simian cousins. Neither fundamentalists nor evolutionists seemed willing to compromise in the images they employed in their writings and lectures.
Popular culture then worked its own magic, conflating cute chimpanzees with powerful gorillas and eventually fashioning a satirical version of a brutish, stoop-shouldered, slack-jawed "caveman" (the comic strip Alley Oop, still carried in hundreds of newspapers today, was created in 1932). In her chapter on "Redeeming the Caveman, and the Irreverent Funny Pages," Clark shows how anti-evolutionists exploited science's own visualizations to advantage. Osborn and other scientists may have imagined that they could determine how evolution would be presented to the public, but even powerful institutions like a New York museum could not control how anti-evolutionists would interpret the images in public exhibit halls. McCann frequently turned Osborn's own displays against him. Osborn had worked with curators and designers to "create a vision of cavemen ennobled, rather than degraded," and yet, Clark points out, they added elements (for example, facial and body hair, or rough wooden clubs) which had little scientific basis, and the murals, busts, and dioramas seemingly celebrated a vision of brutal creatures capable of violence. Critics like McCann then easily pointed to such artistic license as proof that the exhibits "represented speculation, not science." Interpretation (and misinterpretation) of images and evidence thus helped, Clark explains, to raise potent questions "about the very definitions of science and its boundaries," a result that served neither science nor the public well. This history offers an important lesson for popularization and public communication of science today.
Review: Only a Theory
The thesis of Ken Miller's succinct and very readable book Only a Theory is that the evolution/creationism controversy that has been playing out in schools, school boards, legislatures, and courts across the United States is more than a heated but circumscribed skirmish between scientists and religious fundamentalists over the veracity of evolutionary theory versus divine creation, but actually part of a broader and more widespread battle over "nothing less than America's scientific soul". Since few people in the past decade have been more often and more prominently involved at the front lines of this controversy than Miller, this is an alarm call we ought to listen to.
The book begins with taking stock of the scientific prominence of the United States. According to Miller, this success reflects a deep commonality between the scientific spirit and America's key national virtues, namely individual independence and imaginative enterprise, and the value ascribed to the challenging of authorities. American scientific institutions, Miller argues, have thus tended to reward originality and innovation as opposed to loyalty and adherence to established paradigms, which are part of the Old World's academic structure. This is an interesting observation and, to the extent that such a generalization can do so, it probably reflects a true insight.
The next step in Miller's argument, namely that this same independent spirit leads the American public more freely to doubt and openly to challenge the scientific consensus, allowing grassroots movements such as creationism to prosper and score occasional political victories, is far less convincing. By all published surveys, in fact, Americans are far less skeptical of science and more likely to trust the scientific establishment than the supposedly less independent-minded Europeans (see, for instance, NSB 2004: Fig 7-4). For instance, a stunning statistic is that since 1973 a very large fraction (about 40%) of Americans have consistently expressed "a great deal of confidence" (as opposed to "some" or "no confidence at all") in the leadership of the scientific community, more than any other professional group but medicine (which science actually passed in 2002) and, in brief wartime periods, the military (NSB 2004: Fig 7-13). European skepticism of science, however, expresses itself in ways that are not common among Americans, such as the widespread rejection of genetically modified organisms and biotechnology. To me, these data suggest that evolution is more likely to be a sticking point in the United States because of the country's widespread religiousness and the success of fundamentalist denominations, rather than any innate contrarian spirit.
Regardless, Miller's remark that the creationist attack focuses not only on some of the results of science but even on its very methods, and is therefore a real threat to American scientific success, is sensible and important. Yet, the book continues, if we abide by the spirit of challenge that is intrinsic to science, we owe it to ourselves not to reject the creationist critiques of evolution on principle, but to counter them factually. This is where Miller's broad biological knowledge and science writing skills really shine: in a few central chapters, the major tenets of modern creationism and its objections to evolutionary science, such as "irreducible complexity" and the misuse of information theory, are first fairly outlined and then convincingly dismantled. Ranging from pseudogenes to eye evolution, from the immune system to evo-devo, Miller gives a comprehensive view of the scope of modern biology and the interlocking evidence for evolution. Much of this evidence, and the linked account of the Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District trial over the teaching of "intelligent design" in a Pennsylvania high school, will not be new to those who follow the evolution/creationism controversy, but will certainly be a key attraction to readers who want to find a easily digestible and yet factually accurate — well, almost fully accurate: on page 149, Miller classifies the Australian feral dog, the dingo, with the indigenous marsupials — and thorough condensate of the topic.
The factual evidence having been presented, the book goes back to its core argument on the nature of science and how "intelligent design" aims to undermine its very foundations. Miller draws a parallel to a famous book by Allan Bloom (1987), The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Impoverished America's Young and Failed Its Students, which was among the first to highlight the problems associated with the academically dominant post-modernist/multiculturalist paradigm of the time. The striking parallels between the antiscientific arguments of (generally conservative) religious anti-evolutionists and those of (generally leftist) post-modernists have been noted before, most notably by Paul R Gross, who has spent the better part of two decades countering both (Gross and Levitt 1998; Forrest and Gross 2007). Here Miller quotes extensively from Bloom to point out that "intelligent design"'s very own "Wedge strategy" to turn society first against evolution and then against empirically based science altogether very closely matches the rhetoric and goals of some post-modernist philosophy, with similarly pernicious effects. Both attempts, Miller warns, have the potential severely to undermine America's scientific and technological primacy at a critical time in world history. (I dare say that the juncture has become even more critical since the book's publishing, because of the current global economic recession.)
Ultimately, Miller is optimistic about the final success of the pro-science side in this battle, and offers suggestions on how to achieve it by expanding the civic engagement of scientists, renewing our efforts in education, and becoming more savvy in the use of tactics and arguments that appeal to the general public. I suspect that some of these latter proposals will encounter some skepticism, but as usual with Miller's writing, his arguments are thoughtful, his tone engaging, and his enthusiasm infectious. This book is no different, and will make for stimulating reading regardless of a reader's own positions on specific issues and their knowledge of the field.
References
Bloom A. 1987. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Impoverished America's Young and Failed Its Students. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Forrest B, Gross PR. 2007. Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gross PR, Levitt N. 1998. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
[NSB] National Science Board. 2004. Science and Engineering Indicators 2004. Arlington (VA): National Science Foundation. Available on-line at
Review: Rebel Giants
February 12, 2009, was the 200th
birthday of two truly remarkable
men: Abraham Lincoln and Charles
Darwin. And we have already witnessed
an onslaught of celebrations,
conferences, articles, and books
reflecting the latest scholarship on
them. In this biography of the two
men, David Contosta suggests that
in spite of obvious differences in
their lives, they share a lot more
than just their birthdays, and that his comparative
approach provides more insight
into their character than studying
each man separately. Contosta chronicles the lives of the two
men from their childhood, through
their rise to prominence, Darwin
in the scientific sphere and
Lincoln in the political. The last
two chapters provide an overview
of the legacies of the two men. In
addition, Contosta discusses how
views of the two men have
changed as a result of different
waves of scholarship.
Each chapter has a particular theme, and Contosta continually switches back and forth between the two men's lives, comparing and contrasting. For readers somewhat familiar with their lives, the book covers well-known ground. Contosta has made some use of the Darwin Correspondence Project as well as Darwin's autobiography, and he does a good job of describing Darwin's family life and interweaving it with the development of his scientific ideas. Both men are often portrayed as very humble, and much is made of Darwin's continual bouts of sickness and Lincoln's long periods of depression. Yet Contosta rightly points out how ambitious both these men were. While many comparisons are made, this reader did not find them particularly illuminating. For example, both experienced lulls in their careers: Lincoln only had limited success in being elected to public office and Darwin delayed publishing his theory. "In the long run these lulls turned out to be beneficial, since the time had not yet come for either of these men to launch their main efforts" (p 255).
Contosta emphasizes that both men were not religious, doing a better job of showing the factors that led to Darwin's loss of faith. Lincoln appears to have been influenced by enlightenment thinkers, particularly Thomas Paine. Both men were also deeply opposed to slavery, yet clearly thought that the Negro was inferior. Although Darwin believed his theory showed that all races belonged to the same human family, Contosta does not show how Darwin's racism influenced the development of his theory. Darwin thought that present-day primitive races provided a window into the past, exhibiting behavior that was undoubtedly quite similar to that of ancestral primitive races. This would suggest a chain of continuity from ape-like ancestors to primitive human ancestors to present-day humans. Did Lincoln share a similar view? Even many of the most militant abolitionists also thought the Negro were inferior. In the next hundred years, findings in biology from evolution to genetics were used to promote racism, and not just by uninformed people, but scientists themselves. How did such views shape the struggle for true equality? It is not accurate just to say that non-scientists have misconstrued scientific findings. Today, two hundred years later in the United States, religion masquerading as science in the form of "intelligent design" is threatening the teaching of evolution and racism is still rampant. Contosta claims that the two men's "rebellions were challenging others ... to join them with wide-ranging applications for human equality and human rights and the interconnectedness of all living things" (p 215). Since the supposed strength of this book is its comparative approach, a deeper exploration of these issues is warranted.
In a book of this length that is targeted for a general audience, it is somewhat surprising that Contosta devotes an entire chapter to essentially a review of the secondary literature. This is useful for someone who wants to do further reading. Although Contosta cites Janet Browne's major two-volume biography of Darwin, he does not appear to have made much use of it, instead relying on older material. He provides an overview of the developments in the twentieth century that finally vindicated natural selection but also points out the challenges evolution still faced from the religious community. He presents a good synopsis of the pertinent aspects of the Scopes trial, less so for the recent case in Dover, Pennsylvania (probably because it was still going on when the book was already in production). Contosta is a historian whose specialty is American history and may have not felt qualified to comment on the Darwin scholarship. However, I was hoping that he would render his professional opinion about the different treatments of Lincoln. He claims that the early work on Lincoln was hagiographic, but he does not answer the questions later scholarship raised. Was Lincoln really a racist and Southern sympathizer? Had he been a pawn of the radical Republicans and led the country into an unnecessary war or did he save the Union and at the same time emancipate the slaves? Instead Contosta closes the chapter with a rather noncommittal statement: "Debates over what they accomplished and what those accomplishments mean for each succeeding generation seem destined to go on for as long as anyone can imagine" (p 330).
For those who are well versed in the scholarship on Lincoln and/or Darwin, there is nothing that cannot be found in earlier works. However, for readers who do not know much about these men, this is a very readable account of their lives and the many important and struggles they faced, both professionally and personally. One comes away with a good basic understanding of the controversies surrounding evolution as well as the tension between Lincoln's desire to prevent a civil war and at the same time bring an end to slavery. It is definitely a worthwhile read in this regard.
Review: Trying Leviathan
Strictly speaking,
Trying Leviathan
is not about evolution. It is about a
remarkable legal clash between
"common sense" and "expert opinion" — a theme all too familiar in the
ongoing creationism/evolution
wars. As such it has valuable lessons
for us. It is also a terrific read.
The case, Maurice v Judd, played out in the Mayor's Court in New York City in 1818. Because of alleged adulteration of fish liver oil, then an important commodity, the New York state legislature had mandated government inspection thereof — with an inspection fee, and a hefty fine for those failing to comply. At issue was whether whale oil was "fish oil" for the purpose of the statute. The argument boiled down to whether or not whales were fishes. Distinguished zoologist and all-around savant Samuel L Mitchill was the star witness, presenting all the latest arguments from comparative anatomy to demonstrate that whales were mammals, not fishes.
One might expect such erudition to carry the day, but it did not. The lead attorney for the other side, William Sampson, played cleverly on anti-intellectualism to discredit Mitchill as a dilettante and out of touch with reality. Nor did the rhetorical manipulation stop at mere anti-intellectualism. Sampson exploited resentment of what was perceived as New England snobbery, portraying the notion that cetaceans were mammals as a Yankee insult to good old New York common sense: "a mere provincial usage" his co-counsel, John Anthon, called it. And Mitchill had testified that "a whale is no more a fish than a man." Anthon exploited this to tie scientific taxonomy to the slavery question and racial anxiety. He posited a scenario in which Mitchill, using all the same arguments he had adduced in claiming a whale was a mammal, now claimed that an orangutan was a man, and indeed "entitled to vote in our public elections." Sampson cautioned the jury that the distinctness of man from the lower orders would be cast into doubt if this newfangled comparative anatomy were to be recognized in a court of law: "Yes, gentlemen of the jury, in the same order with man, they place the monkey, ape and baboon; all equally related, and differing from the lord of the creation only as they differ from each other" (p 84-5). It is hard to tell which of these ploys was most effective, but something worked, since the jury took only fifteen minutes to rule that a whale was a fish.
The court recommended that the legislature revisit the statute and decide for itself whether it wanted whale oil included. It did not, and amended the statute forthwith.
As we all know, evolutionary biologists are prone to lose debates to creationists if they assume that scientific "knowledge" by its very nature must vanquish creationist "ignorance". Maurice v Judd shows that the same sociological forces and the same rhetorical ploys can maintain their vigor for nearly two centuries, and warns us that when elite culture gets too far ahead of popular culture, it loses its relevance. I think about this every time I explain to students why cladistic reasoning tells us that the "Class Reptilia" does not exist, and that birds are a subset of dinosaurs. It sounds just as "airy-fairy" as the whale-as-mammal theory did in New York in 1818 and is received with appropriate incredulity.
Review: Worlds before Adam
Martin Rudwick's
latest work,
Worlds before Adam (hereafter
WBA), is a mighty sequel to his
massive volume Bursting the
Limits of Time (hereafter BLT;
Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2005; reviewed in RNCSE
2006 Nov/Dec; 26 [6]: 35–6).
Together they constitute a magnum
opus from one of the world's
foremost historians of geology and
paleontology. Like its predecessor
volume, WBA is a weighty book
that details the efforts of 19th-century
geologists to reconstruct an
immensely long and eventful earth history, or "geohistory," as Rudwick
puts it in his title.This book begins
where the previous one leaves off,
in the years following the end of
the Napoleonic era (circa 1817),
when the French comparative
anatomist Georges Cuvier still
wielded considerable influence in
geology, and ends in the early
1840s, when Louis Agassiz's glacial
theory "forced geologists to recognize
the contingent character of
geohistory as a whole" (p 7).
Rudwick divides his book into thirty-six well-written and lavishly illustrated
chapters arranged chronologically
and grouped into four parts.
Part I begins in Paris with Cuvier,
vertebrate paleontology, and earth's
natural "revolutions," then moves to
Great Britain, where important contributions
to stratigraphy and paleontology
were often interpreted in
Biblical terms, and ends with a
lengthy discussion of the debates
about the adequacy of "actual" causes
in explaining geological events of
the distant past.Could small, observable
changes in elevation during
earthquakes, for example, account
for crustal movements on a more
massive, mountainous scale? Part II
deals with the late 1820s and earliest
1830s, when French and English
geologists such as Alexandre
Brongniart, Louis-Constant Prevost,
and William Buckland grappled with
questions of a cooling earth, fossil
faunas, glaciers, extinction and
much more.
Part II ends with Chapter 17, "The specter of transmutation (1825–1829)," which deals briefly (in twelve pages) with the subject of evolution, which is only "loosely linked" (p 237) to the central issues of WBA.As Rudwick argues, Cuvier had already established the reality of extinction by the 1820s, when almost all naturalists agreed that many of the strange fossil remains turning up in all quarters of the globe represented species long gone.Whether it was brought about by gradual, local changes of climate, or through massive catastrophes, the fact of extinction was no longer a question. Explanations for the origins of new species remained steeped in controversy, however, especially as evidence accumulated for the successive appearance of new organisms in the fossil record.
Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck had all but ignored the fossil evidence in his general theory of transmutation published in 1809. Fossils were Cuvier's bailiwick, and he abhorred transmutation. In 1825, however, Cuvier's colleague Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire published a paper in which he argued that living gavials might be the direct descendants of the fossil crocodiles found in the Secondary formations of Normandy, and he tied his argument explicitly to Lamarckian transmutationism. Geoffroy used a widely approved actualistic approach to make his case, arguing that analogous "monstrosities," which could be directly observed in the present world, represented more significant morphological variability than that which was required to explain the cumulative transformation of vertebrate animals over the course of geohistory.But he badly mishandled the fossil record, suggesting that a "progressive series" of fossil vertebrates could be traced from "the ichthyosaur ... and pterodactyl, then passed by way of the ... mosasaur and the Caen crocodile to the American megatherium ... and ended with the Parisian palaeotherium and anoplotherium" (p 242). Geoffroy's hopelessly confused series did not win converts. Moreover, according to Cuvier, there was as yet a conspicuous absence of intermediate forms between fossil and living species.
The important point, though, is that theories of transmutation were still kicking around, at least in France, and they played a role in the continuing debate over how paleontologists were to interpret the history of life. Indeed, Lamarck's Zoological Philosophy inspired a book-length repudiation by the English barrister and geologist Charles Lyell, who felt compelled to "defend his own species from the indignity of being assigned a merely animal origin" (p 246).
Ultimately, the theoretical background did not matter. What mattered most to the practicing geologist of 1830 was to determine when species went extinct, when new ones appeared, and whether they did so suddenly, gradually, in bunches, or one at a time. In short, geologists could reconstruct the history of life on earth without the necessity of appealing to any causal explanation. Debates about the transmutation of species, Rudwick argues, developed "in parallel with the reconstruction of geohistory, with only a loose linkage between them" (p 249).This explains the relatively marginal position that evolution occupies in his book.
Part III is devoted largely to Lyell and his contemporaries and critics, as they debated the merits of his influential Principles of Geology and its uniformitarian approach in the 1830s. Finally, Part IV takes the story of geologists and geohistory into the early 1840s, by which time reconstructing geological events and deducing their causal explanations had become standard practice.
In spite of their intimidating mass, WBA and BLT together are not a comprehensive history of geology, nor are they intended to be. Whole subfields of geology, including mineralogy, petrology, and structural and economic geology, are largely ignored in favor of the more obviously historical fields of stratigraphy and paleontology. This makes perfect sense in light of Rudwick's goal of chronicling the ever-expanding geohistorical approach of earth scientists in the early 19th century. Rudwick claims, with excessive modesty, that he hopes his work will serve as a starting point for further research. But with so grand a beginning, the prospect of writing a worthy contribution in history of geology seems daunting indeed. WBA is a work of such excellence as to recommend it to anybody.
Review: Why Evolution is True
In recent years, the battles over creationism, "intelligent design", and evolution have produced a glut of new books on the topic. Most of the books focus on the purely biological side of evolution; a few (including mine) focus on the fossil evidence. Jerry Coyne's new book, Why Evolution is True, does a beautiful job of covering nearly all the bases in a succinct but enjoyable and gently persuasive fashion.
In the first chapter, Coyne discusses the basic conceptual framework of evolution, and clarifies the common misconceptions about how the science works, and the creationist misuse of the word "theory". The second chapter is a brief but compelling overview of the fossil evidence of evolution, drawing from the most familiar recent examples (Tiktaalik and the origin of tetrapods, the origin of birds from dinosaurs, and the origin of whales) as well as some that are more obscure. Even though Coyne is a neontologist, he does a good job of showing the difficulties that paleontologists endure while finding fossils, the strengths and limitations of the fossil record, and how important the fossil evidence has become for establishing the actual course of evolution. Given the limited, outdated, and inaccurate coverage of the fossil record in most college-level evolutionary biology textbooks, it is a pleasure to see paleontology given a seat at the "high table" of evolutionary biology, even before any of the neontological evidence has been mentioned. I have some small quibbles about outdated taxonomy and Coyne's insistence on gradualism (which most paleontologists would dispute), but overall this is one of the best summaries of the fossil evidence for evolution that I've ever seen by a non-paleontologist.
The third chapter outlines the "mute witnesses" of evolution in the form of vestigial organs and suboptimal or bad design — the best possible antidote to the foolishness of the "intelligent design" argument. More than anything else, pointing to these strange examples of useless or poorly designed features is a powerful argument for evolution, and quickly disarms those who might be seduced by the phony "design argument". Coyne covers most of the classics and many lesser-known examples, from whale hips and legs, human tails, and many other features of the human body that are poorly designed, to "dead genes" and other junk in our DNA. Most impressive of all is the bizarre course of the left recurrent laryngeal nerve, which takes an unnecessarily long course down from the throat to the aorta and back again, since it was once attached to a gill arch in the developing embryo. In the fourth chapter, Coyne reviews all the overwhelming evidence from biogeography, from islands and their peculiar biotas to the odd patterns left over from the breakup of Pangaea.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 cover the classic neontological arguments from genetics, speciation theory, and the evidence that modern biologists have been documenting for the past century. This is the strength of the book, since Coyne's specialty is in these areas, and here his familiarity with the field truly shows. Among these topics is a provocative discussion of "how sex drives evolution", updating the classic sexual selection arguments that Darwin first presented, which were amplified when genetics discovered how important sexual recombination was to genetic variability and speciation.
The penultimate chapter deals with the issue most driving the creationist movement: human evolution. Many creationists would probably ignore evolution (along with the rest of biology) completely were it not for the claim that humans are related to the rest of the animal kingdom, and evolved from non-human ancestors. Coyne presents a brief but clear summary of all the evidence from human anatomy, paleontology, and genetics that make our connection to the animal kingdom (and especially the great apes) indisputable.
In his final chapter, "Evolution Redux," Coyne muses on some of the major implications of evolution, from the philosophical reasons why a scientist can say "evolution is true," to the new field of evolutionary psychology, to the implications of evolution for our worldview. He never spends much time engaging the creationists directly or debunking most of their arguments, but instead gently convinces the reader by clearly and simply describing and explaining the overwhelming evidence that evolution occurred — much as Darwin did 150 years ago. In this way, Coyne's book is a wonderfully balanced approach that is gently persuasive without being combative, and works well for anyone who is sitting on the fence about the fact of evolution. Of course, creationists will hate a book like this (judging from the Amazon.com reviews, many have already tried to trash it), but it should convince anyone with doubts about the issue, or whose mind is not already clouded by religious dogma.
RNCSE 29 (4)
Click "Print Edition Contents" for list of articles in the print edition.
Print Edition Contents: 29 (4)
NEWS
- Darwin Year in the Netherlands: A Time to Reflect
Coen Brummer
Though there is strong scientific and official support for evolution in the Netherlands, there are opponents, too. Both sides are using the Darwin bicentennial to rally their supporters. - Updates
News from Alabama, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas.
NCSE NEWS
- News from the Membership
What our members are doing to support evolution and oppose pseudoscience wherever the need arises. - NCSE Encourages Federal Scientific Integrity
Joshua Rosenau
Words of advice to the new staff and advisors of federal science policy and science-related programs and projects. - NCSE Honors "Friends of Darwin" for 2006
Glenn Branch
We recognize outstanding efforts in promoting evolution. - NCSE Thanks You
Words of appreciation for all those who have supported NCSE financially in recent months.
FEATURES
- Unintelligent Design: Interview with Mark Perakh
Glenn Branch
Mark Perakh discusses his book, his scientific career, and his hopes and concerns about the future of scientific literacy. - Whither "Intelligent Design" Creationism?
Lawrence S Lerner
With the constitutional door firmly slammed against IDC in Dover, which of the few remaining pathways will IDC proponents explore to try to claim legitimacy? - "Intelligent Design": Wave of the Future or Ghost of the Past?
Norman Sleep
Once the dominant scientific framework,"intelligent design"was replaced because it was unproductive. Why go back there?
MEMBERS' PAGES
- What is "Intelligent Design" Creationism?
An adaptation of a recent NCSE brochure that explores the basics of IDC. - "Intelligent Design" On Trial
These books explore and critique "intelligent design" creationism from a diversity of perspectives. - NCSE On the Road
Check the calendar here for NCSE speakers.
SPECIAL FEATURE
- People & Places: William Paley, 1743–1805
Randy Moore
This icon of 18th- and 19th-century natural philosophy was not the first to use a timepiece as a metaphor for arguments from design.
BOOK REVIEWS
- Lost Explorers? Review essay of Exploring Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism
by Stephen C Meyer, Scott Minnich, Jonathan Moneymaker and Paul A Nelson
Reviewed by John Timmer - Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present
by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York
Reviewed by Arthur McCalla - Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science
by John G West
Reviewed by Mark E Borrello - Intelligent Design: Science or Religion? Critical Perspectives
edited by Robert M Baird and Stuart E Rosenbaum
Reviewed by Taner Edis - The Devil in Dover: An Insider's Story of Dogma v Darwin in Small-Town America
by Lauri Lebo
Reviewed by Burt Humburg - The Cell's Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator's Artistry
by Fazale Rana
Reviewed by Frank Steiner
Darwin Year in the Netherlands: A Time to Reflect
Two hundred years ago in February, Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, a small English village about 65 miles from Liverpool. This November, it will be 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, Darwin's magnum opus. For the first time in history, humanity was provided with a reasonable and scientific answer on questions concerning human origins and development. It is no surprise that "Darwin Year 2009" has been celebrated at universities around the world.
However, this Darwin year inspires us to more activities than simply throwing a party for the achievements of human intellect. One of them is reflection on the debate that Darwin's theory started back in the nineteenth century, and which is still going on to this day. In this article, I will give a brief sketch of the situation in the Netherlands over the last few years. While there is no serious scientific doubt about the fundamentals of the theory of evolution among academics in the Netherlands, things look quite different in mainstream society. Recent studies, as published in Science (Miller and others 2006) and in the Dutch popular scientific magazine Quest (as reported in De Volkskrant 2008 Nov 13; available on-line at http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article1091241.ece/44_van_100_Nederlanders_gelooft_in_leven_na_de_dood), show that the rate of acceptance of scientific theories in the Netherlands is low compared to the rest of Europe. Perhaps because of this, there were some controversies concerning evolution during the last decade, which received considerable media attention.
On March 2, 2005, Maria van der Hoeven, at that time the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture, and Science, stated on her website's blog that she was fascinated by the concept of "intelligent design" (ID). (See this report [in Dutch] from Kennislink 2005 Jun 9; available on-line at [link expired] http://www.kennislink.nl/publicaties/ministerontvangt-boek-over-id). Van der Hoeven, a member of the Christian Democratic Party with no scientific background whatsoever, told her staff to investigate whether ID could be used in secondary school to "build bridges" between people with different life stances. Scientists from all over the country were furious. Ronald Plasterk, a prize-winning molecular geneticist, columnist, and coincidentally the current Minister of Education, Culture, and Science, wrote in a column: "When van der Hoeven as a citizen feels the need for a talk about the creator she is free to join a conversation club. As a minister [of government], she should focus on her task and that is to guarantee the quality of education. No more, no less" (2005 May 8; my translation; the original Dutch is available on-line at [link expired] http://www.vpro.nl/gramma/buitenhof/afleveringen/22038179/items/22323895). The secular parties in the House of Representatives raised their voices as well. After this storm of protest, van der Hoeven was forced to withdraw her plans.
The next controversial affair had its roots in the way the public broadcasting network is organized in the Netherlands. Until the late 1960s, society in the Netherlands was segregated into "pillars". This phenomenon — pillarization — made it possible for people of various "life stances" to live separated from each other. Marriage, newspapers, broadcasting networks, and labor unions were all organized within one's own pillar. Currently, the Dutch broadcasting network, as a legacy of pillarization, is still divided into Catholic, Protestant, and Social Democratic organizations, each with its own television shows and radio stations.
In July 2007 a scandal came to light. The Evangelische Omroep — the Evangelical Network — was broadcasting the BBC's The Life of Mammals, a natural history program produced by David Attenborough. While the original DVD contains ten episodes, the evangelicals broadcast only nine, leaving out the last episode — the one on the origin and evolution of humans. In the other episodes, scenes that mentioned evolution or the age of the earth were cut as well. Two evolutionary biologists, Gerdien de Jong (Utrecht University) and Hans Roskam (Institute of Biology Leiden), started a petition to discourage the use of BBC material to mislead viewers of natural history programs in the future. (This is discussed at The Panda's Thumb blog: 2007 Oct 1; http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/10/dutch-petition.html.) They presented the petition to the BBC and David Attenborough, who, by the way, reacted quite mildly.
When asked about the situation by NOS Headlines, a Dutch news website, EO director Hans Hagoort said he "did not understand the drama": "since the start of the EO," he said, "we have been broadcasting natural history programs, including the ones from the BBC." When asked about the deleted scenes, he answered, "we edit the series to fit the Christian faith; we have been doing it for years. We made good arrangements with the BBC about it." De Jong objected. 'They should broadcast the complete series, or not broadcast it at all" (2007 Jul 28; my translation; the original Dutch is available on-line at http://headlines.nos.nl/forum.php/list_messages/7478).
The third event took place on Darwin's birthday, February 12, 2009. Three months earlier, an impressive list of Dutch orthodox Christian organizations joined forces in a campaign against the theory of evolution. Groups such as Schreeuw om leven ("Cry for Life") and Bijbel en onderwijs ("Bible and Education") announced in the national media their plan to send leaflets to six million households in the Netherlands on Darwin's birthday. The total number of households in the Netherlands is estimated at roughly seven million.
The leaflet that was distributed defended creationism as true and opposed to evolutionary science. "You have a choice. You can believe what evolution tells you about the history and origin of man, or you can follow the Bible." The eight-page leaflet was filled with pictures and stories that are used in American creationist brochures as well: natural selection would only lead to decay and disease and not to new or enhanced functions in organisms; fossilized trees that are upside down in the earth indicate a mass flood; and so on. Needless to say, none of the initiators of this campaign had a background in evolutionary biology or geology. The committee of recommendation contained numerous scholars of theology, some priests and churchmen, but not one scientist with a decent academic career. It is unclear how many leaflets were spread in the end. However, the size of this campaign marked a new chapter in the history of creationism in the Netherlands.
These three examples by no means provide a full account of what is going on in the Netherlands. Still, at least one conclusion can be drawn from them. While the Netherlands do not have such a tradition of anti-scientific creationism as the United States has had since the Scopes Trial, public comprehension of evolution is still low and the academic world should remain aware of this. In this Darwin year, 150 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, scientists cannot yet rest on their laurels.
References
Miller JD, Scott EC, Okamoto S. 2006. Public acceptance of evolution. Science 313 (5788): 765–6.
"Intelligent Design": Wave of the Future or Ghost of the Past?
"Intelligent design" creationism is the idea that our universe and particularly earthly biology are so complicated that creation by a deity is the only rational explanation. Its proponents claim to be nascent Galileos stifled by an entrenched establishment (as in the movie Expelled). Perhaps ironically, "intelligent design" was the establishment ... 200 years ago. Darwin and his cohort were suckled on its concepts. Yet design as a useful scientific concept wilted beneath the harsh lights of science: logic and evidence.
The watchmaker argument is hallmark of "intelligent design": "If we find a watch there much be a watchmaker." It formed the centerpiece of Natural Theology (1802; Paley 2008) of William Paley (1743–1805). Paley's watch was no mere timepiece. It was a self-replicating automaton, a consortium of machines. He correctly reasoned by analogy with life that an automaton could reproduce without being aware of its existence, its original fabricator, or even the functions of its component parts. He had no need to cherry-pick examples. Life does show a highly ordered complexity that successfully facilitates its reproduction. The appearance of design is ubiquitous; descriptive words for organisms connote it: for example, "body parts", "body plan", "skeletal structure", and even "creature" in its literal meaning.
Natural Theology, despite its name, consists of descriptive natural history that would later fuel Darwin. Scripture makes a cameo appearance only at the end of his book, which in its day served to interest people in science. Today, it documents the worldview of sincere early scientists struggling with meager information and nascent theory. Paley in practice shared more with modern science than with the professional creationists who have resurrected a debased form of his ideas as part of a cynical "Wedge Strategy".
Just who was Paley? His worldview arose from the science and technology of his time: the start of the industrial revolution. Innovators put mechanical energy to beneficial tasks. Anatomists understood human and animal bodies as complex machines with pulleys and levers. Chemistry was becoming a science; anatomists appreciated that life involved complex chemistry of which they were still largely ignorant. Paley overtly eschewed chemistry in his book for this reason.
The major lacuna in science in 1800 was geology. Next to nothing was known about geological time. The only "old earth" theory available to Paley was Buffon's idea that a comet crashed into the sun and ejected the planets as red-hot masses that subsequently cooled. When Paley corresponded with astronomers to obtain an understanding of planetary orbits, he learned that the idea simply does not work; the orbit of an ejected object returns to the surface of the sun rather than to a circular distant orbit (Paley 2008: 206).
What was Paley's attitude towards an old earth? "It is easy to say this; and yet it is still true, that the hypothesis [of gradual biological change over vast periods of time] remains destitute of evidence" (Paley 2008: 227). "[I]f not in a million of years, perhaps in a hundred millions of years, (for theorists, having eternity to dispose of, are never sparing in time,) [for creatures] to acquire wings" (Paley 2008: 224, emphasis in original). Paley made no reference to speculation on the duration of any geological process. Casual application of geology may well lead one to a young earth. In his time it was known that the inland and coastal landforms of England had been shaped during a glaciation period a few thousands of years earlier, so application of that geological knowledge supported the inference of a young earth. Paley's comparison of a stone having always been in a road with a watch requiring manufacture (Paley 2008: 7) and his remarks that the Creator had no "useful purpose" to mould mountains into "Conic Sections" (Paley 2008: 43) reflect his young-earth mindset.
Paley went to much effort toward refuting the evolutionary theory of his time. The ideas of use-and-disuse evolution and goal-driven evolution were prevalent. Paley doubted that there was enough time for them to act, brought up the lack of evidence of ongoing change, and invoked the creationist staple: if pouches are useful to pelicans, why haven't many more birds evolved them (Paley 2008: 227)? His only other alternative to creation was that given "infinite age" the current situation would arise. He astutely surmised that this concept explained nothing. He did recognize observations that became pillars of natural selection, especially that far more young are born than can survive (Paley 2008: 247–50).
Paley devoted a full chapter to comparative anatomy. He began with Arkwright's mill for spinning cotton. By the time of his book, the contraption had evolved into devices for spinning wool, flax, and hemp. Yet Paley did not recognize this progression as an example of descent with radiation and modification. Rather, given the lack of time available for biological change, he credited both Arkwright and the Creator with an "economy" of design where a single invention worked remarkably well for numerous purposes.
Geology became a science shortly after Paley's death, providing the evidence he lacked. James Although Hutton's old-earth geology was published in 1788, John Playfair's popularization Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth did not appear until 1802 along with Paley's work. The Geological Society of London was founded after Paley's death in 1807. William Smith's geology map gave raise to the paleontological time scale. By the publication of the Origin of Species in 1859, it was patently evident that geological time is vast and that the fossil record shows a sequence of increasingly modern forms, with a lot of extinctions on the way. The evolution of vertebrates from a common ancestor with a backbone explained their obvious similarities. We do not find unworkable organisms for the simple reason that they would not emerge in the first place and would die out if they did. The rapid change of domestic animals and plants by artificial selection provided analogy to the slower change by natural selection.
After Darwin, geologists and biologists abandoned recourse to divinity and the search for higher purposes as unproductive. Any conceivable observation can be attributed to divine intervention and, like saying the present state of affairs will arise given infinite time, nothing is actually explained. Yet the implications of the mother of all sampling biases did not sink in until the space-age interest in astrobiology. We have to be here to observe. No event incompatible with our collective or your personal existence can have occurred. Philosophers of science call this concept the weak anthropic principle. As a successful wide-ranging species, we see the illusion of providence; personally we experience the illusion of miracles if we survive in especially trying circumstances.
Several of Paley's providence arguments can be turned into still unresolved "rare earth" or "rare universe" arguments, especially in his chapters on astronomy and the elements. The earth's orbit is nearly circular and the mild and stable tilt of its axis gives rise to modest seasons. There are no giant planets near the sun that would make its orbit unstable. There is the right amount of water to get oceans and dry land. Water has properties that make it an excellent biological fluid. Newton's laws and physics in general work out so that planetary orbits can be stable.
There is no way that the earth and its inhabitants in their present state could have been formed in a few thousand years by natural processes, so in order to insist on a young earth, it is necessary to have recourse to the supernatural. Paley (2008: 26–7) allowed supernatural processes for creation but rejected overt deviations from the general laws of physics. This history is a prime example how the unscientific practices of invoking divine intervention and seeking purposes in nature were phased out and how science consigns constructs into the dustbin as new evidence becomes available. Paley in part acted like a modern scientist. He gathered the available data and consulted with experts. He willingly and correctly examined Buffon's hypothesis with physics, not Scripture. His young-earth constructs arose from the lack of evidence for an old earth.
There is a good analogy between Aristotle's unchanging geocentric heavens and Paley's young earth populated by unchanging species. Both constructs started with valid observations: we all sense terra firma and well functioning organisms in our daily lives. Paley's examples of designed contrivances became Darwin's examples of evolutionary adaptation, much as well-documented geocentric epicycles were transformed into heliocentric orbits. Galileo pointed out forcefully throughout the Dialogue that Aristotle lacked evidence, including the appearance of "new" stars that pointed to changeable heavens and telescopic observations that supported the Copernican system; Paley lacked our vast knowledge of geology and molecular biology. With regard to K–12 instruction, we do not hide the existence of geocentric astronomy from students; we should not conceal that biology began as a study of design and a search for God's plan. The movement away from that emphasis was not a matter of rejecting theological positions as much as it was embracing scientific ones.
References
Paley W. 2008. Natural Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mainline Protestant Clergy on Evolution
A recent study of mainline Protestant clergy conducted by Public Religion Research included a few questions about evolution. According to the report of the survey:
Mainline clergy views of evolution and its place in public school curriculum are complex. On the one hand, the majority of mainline clergy (54%) do not support the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public school biology classes. On the other hand, mainline clergy are more evenly divided in their views about the theory of evolution itself. Forty-four percent of mainline ministers say that evolution is the best explanation for the origins of life on earth, and a similar number disagrees (43%). United Methodist clergy and American Baptist clergy are most likely to disagree. [Seven in ten] American Baptist clergy (70%) and a majority (53%) of United Methodist clergy say that evolution is not the best explanation for the origins of life on earth.
To provide the details, when asked if creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public school biology classes, 15% of the respondents strongly agreed, 21% agreed,10% were not sure, 19% disagreed, and 35% strongly disagreed.
When asked if evolution is the best explanation for the origins of life on earth, 13% of the respondents strongly agreed, 31% agreed, 13% were unsure, 20% disagreed, and 23% strongly disagreed. In any case, the respondents were generally not outspoken about their views: only 3% of the respondents indicated that they very often expressed their views about teaching about evolution in public schools in the last year and only 13% indicated that they often did so; 42% indicated that they seldom did so and 42% indicated that they never did so.
The respondents were clergy from each of the seven largest mainline Protestant denominations: the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the American Baptist Churches USA, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The survey was conducted by mail between March 3 and September 15, 2008.
For further details, visit http://www.publicreligion.org/research/?id=167.
NCSE Encourages Federal Scientific Integrity
NCSE recently offered its advice on ways the federal government can promote and protect scientific integrity. The comment will be considered as presidential science advisor John Holdren and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) develop regulations implementing President Obama's March 9, 2009, memorandum ordering federal agencies to "ensur[e] the highest level of integrity in all aspects of the executive branch's involvement with scientific and technological processes."
The order specifically asks the OSTP to recommend regulations protecting scientific staff from political litmus tests in hiring and firing, ensuring scientific integrity of internal processes, requiring that information used in policymaking "be subject to well-established scientific processes, including peer review where appropriate," making scientific findings publicly available, and generally "ensur[ing] the integrity of scientific and technological information and processes on which the agency relies in its decision-making or otherwise uses or prepares."
NCSE's comment to the OSTP focuses on educational materials used in informal education at federal facilities, citing reports of creationist books offered for sale at Grand Canyon National Park bookstores and of a political appointee at NASA demanding that the Big Bang be called a "theory" on public websites because "it is not proven fact; it is opinion." It also expresses concern about reports of creationism being taught at schools directly administered by the federal government.
Comments on Scientific Integrity Regulations
National Center for Science Education
The National Center for Science Education is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the teaching of evolution, and to improving understanding of the nature of science. Attacks on the scientific integrity of federal policy pose great dangers to public understanding of science, and we applaud efforts to prevent such abuses. In particular, we hope that the resulting policies will protect the treatment of evolution and related scientific concepts in the federal government's important contributions to informal science education.
Informal science education occurs at parks, museums, and research centers, and includes signs and displays, public lectures or tours at such facilities, and websites and brochures which describe the research conducted at a site, or which provide background on an agency's research. Teachers, school groups and the general public rely on such material for accurate and unbiased scientific information. Such material therefore must reflect the generally accepted views of the scientific community, and indeed, in some federal agencies, this is required by existing statute or regulation. Omission and simplification is unavoidable in educational contexts, but scientifically and pedagogically valid content should not be altered for political or religious purposes. Peer review of educational content is appropriate and necessary; the reviewers should include both scientists and educators with experience in relevant fields. Science educators at federal sites must be protected against political or religious censorship.
Over the last several years, NCSE has monitored attacks on evolution and related concepts in several different federal agencies. Some examples illustrate the dangers and may suggest policies which would avoid similar problems.
There is a long-running conflict over a creationist book being sold in the science section of bookstores at Grand Canyon National Park, creating a conflict between the scientifically-oriented presentations of Park Service staff and an implied Park Service endorsement of erroneous scientific views. The federal government should not lend its credibility to material which falsely claims scientific support for a 6000-year–old earth or other attempts to masquerade religious apologetics as science. It is appropriate to discuss religious views in publications, presentations, and other educational settings, but the integrity of the scientific process is compromised when descriptions of religious views are not clearly distinguished from empirically tested scientific results.
A NASA public affairs officer ordered changes to the discussion of the Big Bang on NASA web pages, demanding that it be referred to as "a theory" because "it is not proven fact; it is opinion." The official also blurred the line between science and religion: "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be, to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts 'intelligent design' by a creator." Making those changes would have misinformed the general public, including schoolchildren, about both cosmology and the scientific process. Agency websites, especially educational websites describing scientific research and scientific knowledge, should adhere to the highest standards of scientific accuracy, and should be free from political or religious pressure.
NCSE has received reports that interpreters at certain National Park Service sites were instructed to avoid discussing the (ancient) age of the earth or the age of particular rock strata, to "avoid controversy". Of course, there is no scientific controversy concerning an ancient age of the earth; the controversy was religious. School groups and the general public rely on programs at National Parks for accurate, unbiased information, and should be confident that scientific content will not be censored for religious reasons. Policies for public information programs must distinguish scientific controversy from political or societal controversy. Educational staff at parks or in other educational programs administered or funded by the federal government must not be restricted from discussing relevant science that is widely accepted by the scientific community. Where a topic is regarded as controversial, agencies should allow review by scientists and educators experienced in the topic and age groups at issue and should defend that peer-reviewed content.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of Defense directly administer schools, and the Department of Education supports teachers and administrators in schools nationwide. In schools administered by the federal government, as in all public schools, science classes must present science as it is understood and practiced by the scientific community. Science textbooks and other instructional materials ought to be subject to peer review and approval by educators who teach the subject at the same grade level. Scientific materials published by federal agencies for use in classrooms should be subject to peer review by scientists and teaching experts, and not subject to political or religious interference. In order to safeguard the integrity of the scientific process, instructional materials used by federal schools or provided to teachers by the federal government should describe the nature of science in clear terms, emphasizing that scientific explanations must be open to empirical testing and that they are evaluated by a community of scientists.
NCSE has received reports of teachers in Department of Defense schools teaching creationism or being pressured not to teach evolution; this is a widespread problem in public schools, with 31% of respondents to an informal survey by the National Science Teachers Association reporting pressure not to teach evolution and 30% reporting pressure to teach creationism. Evolution is accepted by the scientific community as the foundation of modern biology, and must be the organizing principle of biology classes and biology instructional materials. In addition, federal schools must establish policies protecting teachers from pressure to omit or downplay evolution, or to teach religious alternatives to evolution, in science classes.
Establishing clear policies protecting the accuracy of formal and informal educational content provided by the federal government is necessary to ensure the long-term integrity of science. Such content prepares the next generation of federal scientists, and is vital to constituents as they evaluate science-based policies. In particular, agencies should develop policies that provide for scientists and educators to peer review material and to protect potentially controversial topics from political or religious pressure.