Phony Theory, False Conflict

Charles Krauthammer wrote in WaPo Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous: that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious.

Newton's religion was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and a member of the Church of England. Einstein's was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe. Neither saw science as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. "He believed he was doing God's work," James Gleick wrote in his recent biography of Newton. Einstein saw his entire vocation -- understanding the workings of the universe -- as an attempt to understand the mind of God.

Not a crude and willful God who pushes and pulls and does things according to whim. Newton was trying to supplant the view that first believed the sun's motion around the earth was the work of Apollo and his chariot, and later believed it was a complicated system of cycles and epicycles, one tacked upon the other every time some wobble in the orbit of a planet was found. Newton's God was not at all so crude. The laws of his universe were so simple, so elegant, so economical and therefore so beautiful that they could only be divine.

Which brings us to Dover, Pa., Pat Robertson, the Kansas State Board of Education, and a fight over evolution that is so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment.

Dover distinguished itself this Election Day by throwing out all eight members of its school board who tried to impose "intelligent design" -- today's tarted-up version of creationism -- on the biology curriculum.

It is not that the people of Dover wanted only secularism taught in school, they just did not want to pay for the lawsuits that might be necessary.

Pat Robertson then called the wrath of God down upon the good people of Dover for voting "God out of your city."

Pat Robertson is an embarrasment to Christians

Meanwhile, in Kansas, the school board did a reverse Dover, mandating the teaching of skepticism about evolution and forcing intelligent design into the statewide biology curriculum.

Good for them.

Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?

As a scientific theory Intelligent Design does have its problems; but it's purpose is not to challenge the provable parts of evolution, i.e. the adaptation of a species to its environment. What the proponents of ID object to is the Secular Humanists have extended the provable parts of Evolution and have said that the same process (random chance) must apply to the creation of new species - something that has never been proven scientifically. If the schools would just teach that part of evolution which can be proven scientifically, there would be no reason for ID. But if they insist on teaching the Secular Humanist (an athiest/agnostic religion) view of the creation of new species, then they should give equal time to the ID (a religious perspective that should be acceptable to Christians, Jews, and Muslims).

In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase " natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," thus unmistakably implying -- by fiat of definition, no less -- that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and science.

The school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an "unguided process" with no "discernible direction or goal." This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an "unguided process" of molecular interactions without "purpose"? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis?

God is not a puppet master, controlling everything. He created everything, and while He has the ability to intervene anytime He wants, He seldom does.

He may be, of course. But that discussion is the province of religion, not science. The relentless attempt to confuse the two by teaching warmed-over creationism as science can only bring ridicule to religion, gratuitously discrediting a great human endeavor and our deepest source of wisdom precisely about those questions -- arguably, the most important questions in life -- that lie beyond the material.

Don't teach ID; but don't teach the Secular Humanist version of the creation of new species. Just teach the parts of Evolution that can be proven.

How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.

NotInMyBible blogged There is no rational reason for faith and evolution* to be in conflict (*Or any other aspect of science.) There are, however, political and financial reasons for theofascists to keep stirring the pot. They are separatists who want eventually to get rid of everyone who isn't one of them.

ID can appeal to the beliefs of Christians (Protestants and Catholic), Jews, and Muslims. That does not sound like getting rid of everyone who isn't one of them.

Oh, and Charles Krauthammer is even right this time. First time in my memory he was right about anything.

"Radical" Russ blogged But this -- agreeing with Washington Post columnist and Fox News talking head Charles Krauthammer -- ugh, I don't know if I should celebrate or take a shower

Perhaps you should do both.

Cleek blogged Charles Krauthammer, who looks like Mandy Patinkin's grumpy brother, is usually someone worth disagreeing with. Nonetheless he has an excellent column today about my second favorite subject: 'Intelligent Design'.

Jason blogged Periodically I go off on a rant about the anti-science tendencies of the modern Republican party. I do so knowing that in response I can expect some well-meaning commenter to lecture me about how not all conservatives are anti-science and that I shouldn't paint with such a big brush and all that.

In that spirit, allow me to link to this excellent column from Charles Krauthammer. It gets off to a shaky start, talking up the religiosity of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Einstein, however, was not religious in any sense an evangelical Christian would recognize. In fact, he once ridiculed the idea of a personal God as a childish delusion.

It depends on what you mean by a personal God. If you mean someone to do what you want, just because you pray for it, I agree that is foolish. If you are talking about someone having a personal relationship to God, that is to be admired.