The latest issue of Science has a deservedly cruel review of Steve Fuller’s dreary philosophical assault on evolution, Dissent over Descent: Intelligent Design’s Challenge to Darwinism. I could tell from the title alone that the book was going to be worthless—Intelligent Design creationism provides no coherent “challenge” to evolution other than the purblind relabeling of it as “Darwinism”—but poor Michael Ruse had to actually read the whole book. Here’s his quick summary of the contents:

More amused than cross, let me go to the heart of Fuller’s case against Darwinian evolutionary theory and for IDT—for his is as much a negative critique of the opposition as a positive defense of his own beliefs. Fuller feels that Charles Darwin failed to make the case for his mechanism of natural selection. Darwin did not give a cause for evolution. He certainly did not unify the field. At most he gave lists of facts. Moreover, today if we feel that advance has been made, it is primarily in the molecular field, and this owes little or nothing to traditional evolutionary thought. At best Darwinism is a kind of tarted-up natural theology and, this being so, why not IDT?

Well. If that is an accurate description, and I have no reason to think otherwise since I have read some of Fuller’s pronouncements on these topics and they are entirely in line with the summary, then Fuller is an even bigger fool than I thought. Those statements are wrong in every case. Not just wrong, but transparently wrong, since even a non-philosopher like myself can read The Origin and see that his accusations against Darwin’s argument are false, and as someone who follows the field of molecular evolution somewhat closely, I think his claims about the state of the modern biological sciences are utterly silly.

Fortunately, Ruse has concisely skewered Fuller’s arguments for us.

The important thing is that all of this is completely wrong and is backed by no sound scholarship whatsoever. In at least one case, Fuller makes his case by an egregious misreading—of something I wrote about the role of genetic drift in Sewall Wright’s shifting balance theory. For the record, Charles Darwin set out to provide a cause, what he called—following his mentors like William Whewell (who in turn referred back to Newton)—a true cause or vera causa. Darwin felt, and historians and philosophers of science as well as practicing evolutionary biologists still feel, that he succeeded, for two reasons. First, he showed how organisms can be changed by human picking or selecting. Although Fuller repeatedly claims that Darwin intended no analogy here, that is simply not true. In the face of virtually everybody—including Alfred Russel Wallace, who (in the manuscript he sent to Darwin in 1858) explicitly denied a link between artificial and natural selection—Darwin insisted that we can gain confidence about selection in nature from what happens when humans are active. Second, Darwin brought everything together in a “consilience of inductions.” He argued that if you take selection as the causal mechanism, then you can explain instinct, the fossil record, geographical distributions of organisms, anatomy, systematics, and embryology. In turn, the success of these explanations feeds back to support the belief in selection. About as unifying a setup as it is possible to imagine.

One can go on to look at things today. It is ludicrous to claim that modern evolutionary biology is not integrated with molecular biology. Motoo Kimura’s neutral theory depends crucially on the claim that selection has little or no effect on processes down at the molecular level. Genetic fingerprinting has proved absolutely vital for observational and experimental studies of evolution. Someone like British ornithologist Nicholas Davies, working out the relationships among individual dunnocks (Prunella modularis), would have been powerless without the technique. And in evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), currently the hottest area of evolutionary research, how does one speak of genetic homologies between fruitflies and humans without talking about molecules?

Somehow, Fuller has been granted the status of an authority by Intelligent Design creationists. I don’t know how or why, but I hope they keep picking buffoons to represent their cause.

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Ruse M (2008) A Challenge Standing on Shaky Clay. Science 322(5898):47-48.

Ah, the weird, wild world of the interwebs, where one actually finds people calling themselves “VenomFangX” and “Thunderf00t” squaring off to do battle. VenomFangX is one of the lower denizens of Youtube, a creationist notorious for the arrogant confidence with which he states the ridiculous and ignorant. Thunderf00t is a calm rationalist and defender of science and evolution on Youtube, and they recently did battle.

VenomFangX, unable to actually outargue and outreason Thunderf00t, made a series of legal accusations, that Thunderf00t was violating copyright, and convinced Youtube to briefly yank his account. Thunderf00t shot those accusations down, and made a legal claim in reply, that abusing the copyright act had serious penalties associated with it, and demanded a public retraction and apology.

Thunderf00t won, and got VenomFangX to concede and read a detailed apology on camera, which is now on Youtube. I have to give it to VenomFangX, he actually managed to read it with a little dignity and about the same amount of sincerity you’ll find in his creationist videos — but I doubt that he has really learned anything from the episode, other than to be more careful about making actionable statements.

The Brunswick school district, AKA Dover’s dumber little brother, is still struggling with the creationists trying to smuggle creationism into the science classroom. The latest report, though, suggests that the pro-science side is being aggressive in fighting back, and the pro-ignorance side is backing off due to pocketbook pragmatism — a costly court case could hurt them badly.

I thought this comment was revealing.

District 2 Republican Catherine Cooke, who presents herself as an active parent and therefore insider in the county school system, said she knows creationism is not to be taught as science, but she’s not against the topic being explored in some form.

“There’s a lot of scientific proof for creation,” Cooke said, without elaborating on that proof. “It’s not one-sided.”

Wow, Ms Cooke: a contradiction — she knows it’s not to be taught as science, but she thinks it is scientific — and a falsehood — there is no scientific evidence for creation. It actually is that one-sided.

I also liked the subtle dig in the reporter’s description, “without elaborating on that proof.” Of course she didn’t, she can’t. I’ve sat down with a lot of these people who claim there is science behind creationism, and when I ask them to get specific and tell me what some of it is, they suddenly get the look of a poleaxed rabbit and start stammering the names of creationist authorities who told them so, at best.

It’s a wonder that these people know how to tie their own shoes. I was sent a link to Perry Marshall’s Intelligent Evolution Quick Guide, and it is certainly a fine example of the kind of reasoning that allows creationism to thrive. It’s a short guide, but it goes on for over a page, when the essential syllogism that defines ID is actually presented in three all-encompassing lines.

1. DNA is not just a molecule – it is a coding system with a language & alphabet, and contains a message

2. All languages, codes and messages come from a mind

3. Therefore DNA was designed by a Mind

As I’m sure all of you sensible readers can immediately detect, his first premise is a deeply flawed analogy and his second is simply undemonstrated and entirely false, so his “therefore” is unwarranted. Three lines, three errors: a perfect representation of creationist thought.

I give to you the cockroach. It contains DNA, and it copies it and propagates it to the next generation of cockroaches, yet is it even aware of its DNA? Does it use its tiny little cockroach mind to construct a complex molecule? No. Mindless chemistry does it. There is no thought behind the synthesis and modification of the DNA molecule at all, yet it is true that it carries out complex activities with the aid of other molecules in the cytoplasm…but without the assistance of any intelligent beings at all.

Similarly, I give you the creationist. They contain DNA, and a large brain as well, but they don’t use that brain at all in producing progeny. After a little embarrassed tickle and grunt, mindless chemistry takes over in fertilization and development, and 9 months later, another mind emerges from one of their unencephalized wombs. We can trace the origins of that DNA back and back and back, and at no point in its history does it seem to be produced by conscious design, and the farther back we look, the less available potential there was for intelligent intervention. Bacteria are even less clever than cockroaches, you know.

If you want to understand our history and our evolution, the first concept you have to be able to grasp is that natural processes produce all the complexity and diversity of extant life without the guiding hand of any external agents. Once you’ve realized that, it becomes apparent that we can work backwards through our ancestry without invoking magic or cosmic helpers — that Intelligent Design creationism is a superfluous hypothesis that can be dismissed in the absence of any corroborating evidence.

Parents in the Berkeley Unified School District are horrified to discover that one of their elementary school teachers is a creationist. Berkeley is like another weird world: this is so common everywhere else, and Berzerkeleyites are so shocked when it happens among their own. I was actually amused at what the creationist teacher did, though.

Parents said that Martin had listed Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Harry Potter under fiction on the blackboard, which promptly reduced some of the 8-year-olds to tears, after which she made the comment about God. [“the only thing they should believe in was God”]

They said that Martin then said that she didn’t believe in evolution or the Big Bang theory either.

Usually it’s us atheists portrayed as the disillusioning bastards who shatter small children’s happy consoling beliefs (and it’s true: nothing warms the shriveled valves and atrophied muscles of my tiny dark heart than to visit department stores at Christmas time and announce to the waiting lines of tots that Santa is dead).

But seriously, it’s about time the sheltered elite enclaves woke up to the fact that the creationist movement is working its tendrils in everywhere.

I received an email today that brings up a curious decision by Lund University: they have appointed a new head of the university who seems to have a few bats in the belfry, and there is some concern that they may be rabid. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that this newly appointed head, Per Eriksson, refuses to discuss some of his beliefs, even though these beliefs may well affect his performance on the job.

I’m hampered by the fact that all the news about this selection is in Swedish, and I can’t read a word of it. Here’s the short summary I was sent.

The Lund University board ignored the recommendation of an examination committee consisting of 90 university professors, students, and other concerned parties and appointed a renowned creationist Per Eriksson with strong connections to the Baptist movement in Sweden. When interviewed concerning the appointment the appointed headmaster candidate proudly pronounced publicly that he faithfully consulted his bible on a daily basis. Although religious freedom should be adhered to, the appointed headmaster candidate made a clear and conscious gesture by displaying his biases. The public pronouncement of his personal beliefs may be an indication of how personal convictions may influence and bias the Prof Eriksson’s judgement in his influential position controlling the largest seat of learning in northern europe.

If he is a creationist, this is big trouble, and ought to be grounds for tossing him out on his ear. You cannot properly administer a modern university while simultaneously believing that the science disciplines are fundamentally in error because they do not bow down to your bronze age myths. However, I haven’t yet found anything in which his creationism is made explicit. Mainly, I’m finding news stories where Eriksson is pretty cagey about avoiding any association with the tenets of his church.

For instance, here’s a story in which the science faculty unanimously oppose his appointment (google translation), explaining that he is a member of a pentecostal church which is “connected to the Swedish Baptist community and the Evangelical Free Church”—that’s a nice stew of crazy right there. This is an anti-science church with the stated belief that homosexuality is wrong, but nothing about creationism, other than that they say the bible is literally true.

Another source (google translation) tried to grill Eriksson on his own personal views on homosexuality and stem cell research: he’s stonewalling (google translation).

Anyway, it’s a strange situation. The Lund University board has selected a candidate who was strongly opposed by a committee of university faculty, and who has very suspicious affiliations with pentecostal/fundamentalist/evangelical religion. That’s all I know at this point, but perhaps some of our Scandinavian readers can dig a little deeper than I can and report back.

I just got a nice letter from the Science Research Foundation of Turkey, an organization founded by Adnan Oktar and with a name so duplicitous that our American Republicans are writhing with envy. Here’s their request and my answer.

[Read more…]

This is a very silly story.

Spring Hill resident Anita Koper thought she’d heard it all – until last week, when her 12-year-old daughter came home from school at Explorer K-8 and started asking her about “revolution.”

“She said her science teacher told the class that in some religions, if you are bad, you come back in another life as a dog, cow or pig,” Koper said.
She said she soon realized her daughter was asking about evolution, not revolution, and that her sixth-grade science teacher had mentioned the theory of reincarnation.

“He also told the class that if you are any religion, you can just go to a Catholic church and they will let you in if you give them money,” Koper said. “I am Catholic and this teacher should get his facts straight before he starts talking about religion. Unless he’s a theologian, he shouldn’t be preaching about this.”

Why should she object to tales of reincarnation? Isn’t it obvious that her daughter is the reincarnation of Gilda Radner?

As Florida Citizens for Science points out, this was a case of a teacher cursorily answering questions that students brought up, prompted by some obligingly vague mentions of alternative faith-based explanations for our origins in their textbook. The teacher was not promoting some kind of bizarre New Age Buddhist-Catholic Prosperity Fusion religion, he was simply trying to cope with a few off-the-wall queries from students who might have been sincere, or might have been acting the smart-ass. The story was further distorted by this young lady, who apparently wasn’t paying close attention, and only echoed the freaky strange bits of the class and even there, got them wrong.

This is not unusual. These are 12 year olds. Little distracted and easily distractible kids in 6th grade.

This, of course, is the milieu into which creationists think it would be worthwhile to introduce a welter of curious myths, superstitions, speculations, and maybe even genuine alternative scientific explanations for various phenomena (but probably not — creationists are allergic to real science), all under the great and sacred principle of “fairness” and the admirable ideal of exposing students to the immense range of human thought, without regard for the filters of likelihood that science tends to throw up. Can you imagine what stories they’ll be bringing home to their parents if the Discovery Institute has their way?

Texans can stand a little taller now — their scientists have organized into the 21st Century Science Coalition and are speaking out loud and clear.

The 21st-Century Science Coalition is putting politicians on notice that the science community in Texas will accept nothing less than the best education for our kids. We will not allow politics and ideology to handicap the future of our children with a 19th-century education in their 21st-century classrooms.

Any other scientists in Texas should sign their statement. The rest of us should give a clenched fist salute and promise to be as forthright with our local politicians as Texas scientists are with theirs.