Who I Am

High school math teacher, technology director, and former curriculum director who has worked on standards in all major curriculum areas

Anthropology degree, with emphasis on religion and belief systems

Long-term interest in history of science and philosophy, as well as science itself

Board member of Kansas Citizens for Science, but I am not speaking here officially as a KCFS spokesperson

Also, even though I appreciate being invited to be a dissenting view in the interest of balance, I am actually about 2% of the conference in terms of contact hours.

Pamphlets and Format

The packet we gave you contains an outline for this talk, and some parts of the speech written out. There are extra pamphlets if you want to take some.

I will talk for about 35 minutes or so, with 15 - 20 minutes for Q&A at the end. I will stay later than the hour if people want to talk more, and will be around for the rest of the day (as well as repeating this talk during the 2nd concurrent session.)

I believe discussion is critical. The issues are more complicated than any lecture can cover - we live in a soundbite world, and need to work to not succumb to soundbite understanding.

I hope you at least listen with the intent of gaining a clear, accurate understanding of my positions despite whatever disagreements you may have with then.

I suggest, therefore, that maybe you take notes of questions or comments during the speech. That will not only help you remember them, it will help you continue listening rather than staying stuck in your mind on what you would like to say or ask.

The Discovery Institute (DI) is a conservative think-tank in Seattle. The "intelligent design" branch of the DI is called The Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. Their logo is a picture of God reaching out and touching DNA. Their goal is to "renew science" by trying to establish that God is a necessary, scientifically verifiable aspect of biology - they wish to establish a "theistic science." Their ultimate goal is to then "renew culture" by using this supposed "theistic science" to expand their religious beliefs into education, law, government, the arts and the humanities, and so on.

The DI believes that the philosophy of "naturalism" is the primary cause of what they see as the "devastating cultural consequences" which they hope to reverse — "philosophical naturalism" being defined as the metaphysical belief that the physical world is all there is, and that there is nothing that cannot be described and explained in terms of aspects of the physical world.

Now many people would agree that our modern culture could benefit from improvement in many areas, although we do disagree. somewhat strongly at times, as to what and how. Furthermore, arguing that a resurgence of traditional Christian belief would be helpful is a perfectly legitimate enterprise.

Where the Discovery Institute goes wrong, and what raises the resistance of people like me, is the DI's claim that science in general, and the theory of evolution in particular, is the root cause of the problem.

Phillip Johnson and other ID proponents say that science, as a method of learning about the physical world, essentially embraces or implies philosophical naturalism (or materialism).

This is the key point upon which Johnson is wrong.

Furthermore, Johnson and the DI have a strategy, called the Wedge, that is meant to divide us into two camps: those that support science and those that believe in God. Johnson says that it is not possible to both fully accept science and to believe in God.

Johnson is wrong about this also.

In this talk, I will first explain why I think Johnson is wrong about these things. I will explain why most of "Intelligent design" is theology, not science; and I'll explain that the part that attempts to be legitimate science is wrong, or at least entirely undeveloped and unsubstantiated at this point. And finally I will explain why ID should therefore not be taught as science in the public schools

3) What is science, and how does it relate to other forms of knowledge?

The Kansas Science Standards state that "Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us."

Science is purposely limited to describing the world that is known, or potentially knowable, to our external senses - in terms of other things that are likewise externally knowable.

However, this definition neither embraces nor endorses, either explicitly or implicitly, philosophical naturalism.

Two points:

a) Science does not attempt to offer theological nor metaphysical explanations for the phenomena it studies. Science describes how the natural world works, in respect to other parts of the natural world, but it can't ultimately tell us why the world is as it is. Metaphysical questions such as what, if anything is beyond physical reality, why are things the way they are, where did everything come from, and so on, are all important; and yet ultimately not questions science can answer.

Richard Feynman tells a little story about what happens when we describe why we slip on the ice. When we step on the ice, the ice compresses and in doing so warms it up a bit. That melts the surface of the ice, which produces a slippery film of water. Now why does that happen? Well, that has to do with the way the chemical bonds between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms react to temperature. And why do they do that? We can continue explaining for a while in reference to further knowledge, but at some point we just have to answer "because that's the way the world works." There are boundaries past which scientific investigation cannot go.

b) Science does not attempt to explain various internally experienced phenomena, such as our moral, aesthetic, or spiritual experience: these also fall outside the realm of science. Here science can neither tell us what nor why. Decisions about values, morals, and ethics; aesthetic judgments; and spiritual understandings about the nature of the world and our relationship to it are outside the realm of science.

This fact that morality, aesthetics, and spirituality are not part of science does not mean that they less real concerns than scientific ones. Johnson, in his typically divisive way, claims that there are only two types of knowledge - fantasy or fact. He then claims that if something can't be established as fact, scientifically, then it is fantasy - no different than a belief in Santa Claus.

Johnson is wrong about this. Our humanity includes vastly more than just the physically observable world that science investigates. The nature of these additional aspects of our lives, and their relationships with us, is a difficult and interesting subject beyond the scope of this speech, but there is nothing in the scientific enterprise that denies the existence or importance of areas beyond science.

As a friend of mine, biologist Peter Gegenheimer, says, "Science can show what I have in my hand, but not what I have in my heart."

It is true that some individuals, including some well-known scientists, are "philosophical naturalists," and invoke scientific understanding in support of their position.

However, it is equally true that many scientists who accept the evidence for evolution are also committed and outspoken theists, including both Christians and members of many other religions.

People with a wide range of beliefs, from atheists and to theists of many kinds, believe that our current scientific understanding of the world is compatible with, and supports, their metaphysical position.

This itself is evidence that science does not inherently imply any particular metaphysics. Science itself is neutral on issues of the ultimate nature of reality.

Phillip Johnson, however, doesn't accept the position I've outlined above.

It is Johnson's goal, and the Discovery Institute's goal, to drive a "wedge" between supporters of science and believers in God. In particular, Johnson specifically denounces the mainstream Christian viewpoint of "theistic evolution."

Last year at a speech in Lawrence, Kansas, a friend of mine asked Johnson if one could accept the theory of evolution and also be a Christian. Johnson called such people "liberal Christians," and said that they "are worse than atheists because they hide their naturalism behind a veneer of religion."

Many of my Christian friends considered this a fairly offensive remark. They consider their position entirely defensible and orthodox.

"Theistic evolution" starts with the idea of the sovereignty of God: the belief that God is in total control over the world, and all that happens reflects his Will. This means that nothing happens by true chance in the eyes of God: what is chance to us is not chance to God. As theologian RC Sproul says, "If there is any element of the universe that is outside of God's authority, then he no longer is God over all."

My friend Keith Miller, an evangelical Christian and geology professor at KSU, has written,

Secondly, God, being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, knows and controls the world in ways which surpass our human understanding: we cannot know the world as God knows the world. The proper attitude one should take here is what I might call "epistemological humility" - a reverently humble recognition of the limitations of our ability to know.

Christians apply this same reasoning to everyday life. Let me give a short example.

Suppose you are on your way to catch a plane, but a small fender-bender at an intersection causes a traffic jam and you miss the plane. Then the plane crashes and everyone on board is killed. What are we to think of this?

It would be an orthodox Christian response for the person who missed the plane to believe that it was part of God's plan for his life that he was fortunately saved from death.

And yet, the traffic jam was "just luck." The police, in describing the accident that caused the traffic jam, would be perfectly justified in offering only naturalistic explanations. We would not accuse the police of being atheistic philosophical naturalists because they did not include the theistic elements concerning God's Will in their police report.

In this situation, and countless others, I believe the mainstream Christian position uses the scientific perspective of seeking natural explanations for events, and at the same time embraces the theological perspective that God is actively, continually present in bringing forth his desired plan for the world.

This is not a logical contradiction, as Johnson would claim, that one must resolve by renouncing one or the other types of understanding. It is rather a recognition of the limitations of human knowledge.

The enterprise of science properly acknowledges these limitations, and so does the "theistic evolutionist." The "theistic evolutionist" accepts the sovereignty of God, believing that the natural history of life on earth is a reflection of the Will of God, and that in ways which surpass our understanding, God has guided the evolution of life to its present condition.

This position of "theistic evolution" is not, as Johnson says, an untenable veneer of religion. In fact, many Christian critics of ID argue that "theistic evolution" is a more acceptable Christian position than ID.

ID seems to claim that most events, such as "microevolutionary" changes, proceed without God's presence, "naturally," as if nature were a separate entity from God.

I call this viewpoint "punctuated deism:" most of the time God is content to let the world proceed on its own, and only occasionally must he intervene to design that which wouldn't otherwise happen. Only when nature cannot accomplish what God wants is it necessary for God to step in and "design."

Keith Miller has written,

Johnson and his followers, in implying this interventionist idea of God, are really closer to the "philosophical naturalists" than they are to the "theistic evolutionists." They seem to believe that most of the time "nature is all there is," and that there must be empirical evidence to substantiate those infrequent times when God has in fact designed some part of the world. This theological perspective is legitimately criticized within the Christian community.

At times members of the design movement state that "the detection of design" is scientifically possible, but judgments about the identity and nature of the designer are not. They ask, "Who said anything about God?" The designer could possibly be space aliens, or some type of New Age cosmic consciousness, or a set of neo-Platonic ideals, or the Christian God, and so on. ID is theistically-friendly, they say, but the adoption of theistic beliefs about the designer is "optional."

In my opinion this distinction is a facade. Many times the ID leaders have made it clear that they are trying to establish ID in order to establish the "reality of God."

For instance, at a speech in Washington last April, Johnson said, "We will discover that "in the beginning was the Word" is fact not fantasy. It's as true scientifically as it is spiritually or Biblically…[Evolution is] is the latest fashion in idolatry. This spiritual understanding is, I think, the right entry into the whole Biblical system of thinking."

Dembski has written that "The world is a mirror representing the divine life…Intelligent design readily embraces the sacramental nature of physical reality. Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." (Touchstone Magazine, July/August 1999).

And, last year at a meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters in Anaheim, California, Dembski said,

The ID movement is primarily theological in nature.

This in itself is perfectly legitimate. In fact, the "theistic evolutionist" could easily agree with much of what Dembski says.

However, the attempt to portray ID as science is not legitimate. The attempt to discredit science is being made through theological arguments, and the arguments for ID are likewise theologically motivated. The key issue being discussed is the nature of God's action in the world - that is a theological issue, not a scientific one.

Recently the Intelligent Design network (IDnet) published a "Legal Opinion Regarding the Teaching of Origins Science in Public Schools."

The IDnet, led by Managing Director and lawyer John Calvert, solicited this legal opinion from Mr. Calvert himself, who duly responded to the request of his own organization and wrote a lengthy paper concerning the subject. Calvert will be discussing this paper in a session later today.

The legal opinion defines the key issue as follows::

As I have shown, the second half of that statement is critically incomplete. Science, including the theory of evolution, can and does support the full spectrum of theological and metaphysical positions, from orthodox Christian theism to atheism: science is theologically neutral.

The "Design Hypothesis," however, tries to have its cake and eat it too: it sometimes claims that it makes no claims about the designer and yet it will also state, sometimes quite strongly as shown, that the designer is God.

Let's assume for a moment that we accept that ID can make no claims about the designer. In fact, the IDnet "legal opinion" says that "the Design Hypothesis does not seek to attribute any design to that of a supernatural designer or God. For that matter, any design that is detected could be a product of an alien mind that is currently being searched for by the SETI program."

In France there is an atheistic group called the Raelians who believe life on earth has been designed by space aliens, believers in the panspermia hypothesis think that life has been seeded here from outer space, neo-Platonists believe that abstract ideas impose their form on reality, and so on.

So the "Design Hypothesis" likewise supports a full range of theological and metaphysical positions.

Therefore, the IDnet's contention that "when government seeks to teach origins science it enters a religious arena where it is constitutionally obligated to remain neutral" is wrong, and contradicts the "official" ID position that the "Design Hypothesis" makes no claims about the designer. Since it is false that theological distinctions can be drawn between the theory of evolution and the hypothesis of design, the rest of Calvert's arguments concerning possible legal ramifications of teaching evolution are not relevant

9) ID as science

Let's finally set aside all these theological issues, and look at what ID has to offer purely as science, without reference to either the purported theological failings of science or the purported theological advantages of ID.

What does ID have to offer?

In my opinion, virtually nothing.

ID offers no testable hypothesis, much less tested hypothesis. Even though the Discovery Institute talks of a "research program," they have in fact produced no research.

All that ID has offered are some philosophical concepts (Behe's irreducible complexity and Dembski's complex specified information) which claim to have shown "in principle" that certain things couldn't have happened by purely naturalistic means, and from these arguments they have concluded that those things must have been designed.

But in practice, neither Behe nor Dembski have shown how to apply their ideas empirically to any real biological situation, or even explained how this might be done.

ID proposes no mechanism by which design might be implemented - no explanation about what might have happened in the physical world when the naturalistic flow of events was insufficient. In the essay "ID Coming Clean," Dembski explains that God imparts information into the world through Logos (the Word of God) in a undetectable manner that does not contravene the laws of nature, and that design, being the creative act of God, is not a mechanism that could be studied scientifically. These are obviously theological ideas and offer nothing that science can use to study the world.

ID hasn't produced any definite statements about what has been designed, and when. Some seem to think that only the first cells were designed, others that the Cambrian was the other period of design, and others that design has occurred whenever "major body plans" or different "kinds' of animals have appeared. Many, in claiming that "macro-evolution" is impossible seem to say that design happens whenever speciation occurs.

There is, then, no "intelligent design" theory about how or when ID has happened. ID has produced no science. Until ID can offer some testable hypothesis, some research proposals, and eventually some data that support those hypothesis, it will remain what is it now: metaphysical speculation without empirical content.