© 2004 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
Darwinism, Design, and Public Education. John Angus Campbell and Stephen C. Meyer, eds.
2 Department of History and Political Science Southeastern Louisiana University Hammond, Louisiana 70402 E-mail: bforrest{at}selu.edu
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This is the first of a series of occasional pieces that address current issues in biology. In this case the topic is Intelligent Design. Books about evolution roll off the presses at a rate that defies comprehensive reading. Along with important new mainstream evolutionary studies such as Sergey Gavrilets' Fitness Landscapes and the Origin of Species there is the genre of fundamentalist creationist, anti-evolutionist literature that dresses up the dusty notion of Intelligent Design in quasi-scientific clothing as a tactic to get creation into the science classroom. A recent manifestation of this genre is Darwinism, Design, and Public Education. We have asked Dr Barbara Forrest, whose book Creationism's Trojan Horse (Oxford University Press, 2004) written in collaboration with Paul Gross, exposes contemporary creationist tactics, to write a commentary on the latest manifestation of Intelligent Design, which appears below as an extended book review.
John S. Edwards, Editor, Department of Biology University of Washington Seattle, Washington 98195-1800 E-mail: hardsnow{at}u.washington.edu
Darwinism, Design, and Public Education. JOHN ANGUS CAMPBELL AND STEPHEN C. MEYER, EDS. Michigan State University Press, 2003. 554 pp. (ISBN 0-87013-675-5 pbk, $28.95).
Recycling substitutes for novelty in this intelligent design creationist offering. DDPE is not a new book but rather an anthology consisting largely of warmed-over essays from a 1998 issue of Michigan State University Press's journal, Rhetoric and Public Affairs. Neither of the book's editors is a scientist. John Angus Campbell, who also serves on the journal's editorial board, is a rhetorician. Stephen C. Meyer is a philosopher who serves as director of the Center for Science and Culture (CSC), the creationist subsidiary of the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank in Seattle. Campbell is a longtime CSC fellow. Although a Discovery Institute-owned website (www.darwinanddesign.com) falsely advertises DDPE as a "peer-reviewed science book," it was published as part of MSU Press's Rhetoric and Public Affairs Series. Despite a Discovery Institute press release announcing that the book "features new scientific arguments for design based on evidence in paleontology and comparative anatomy," it offers no new scientific arguments and cannot be reviewed as a science book since intelligent design (ID) science is nonexistent.
But this is old news. Everything ID proponents have offered as "science," starting with Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box (1996), has been thoroughly evaluated, and discredited, by many qualified scientists and philosophers of science. Such critiques are available on the Internet and in recent books. What most needs criticism is the agenda this book serves; that is not as widely understood as it should be.
Despite ID proponents' constant demand for "balance" between evolution and ID in public schools, the book's editors make no pretense at balance. Comparing the publication of DDPE to Darwin's "uphill battle to distinguish his own position in the public mind," Campbell justifies the lopsided presence of creationists in this volume by asserting that "novelty requires time and repetition to sink in." They do, however, make a pretense of offering scientific expertise. Nineteen of the twenty-seven essays are by ID creationists and their supporters, not one of whom is a working evolutionary biologist. Among the eight pro-evolution essays, only four are by scientists. Of those, only two are by evolutionary biologists. There is a preponderance of humanities scholars; some, like rhetorician John Angus Campbell, are ID proponents while others are pro-evolution.
Despite the pro-evolution essays, however, DDPE is designed to showcase the creationist essays, which are themselves a study in intellectual dishonesty. This book is another element of the "Wedge Strategy," a public relations program being executed by the Discovery Institute creationists, who call themselves "the Wedge." The term reflects their intent to "wedge" into the public mind a distinction between science and the naturalistic methodology that makes science successful. They want to convince the public and politicians (which includes educational policymakers) that "theistic science" is a real possibility, that ID's supernatural "intelligent designer" is a fundamental principle of scientific explanation.
Campbell announces that DDPE will offer most readers "a first encounter with an alternative to the established paradigm [of Darwinian evolution] by qualified authors who believe that Darwinism is false and wish to see it replaced"—thus revealing the creationist agenda that guides the book. The intended audience is science teachers, many of whom are underprepared for teaching evolution and all of whom are so busy educating the young and dealing with the problems attendant upon that task that they cannot be expected to do the research that would reveal how misleading this book is. A hefty tome, it will undoubtedly impress educational policymakers who either harbor ID sympathies or are in no position to recognize the book's deceitfulness. It also hands ammunition to ID supporters who will try to persuade school boards that the inclusion of essays by a few reputable, pro-evolution scientists and scholars proves that ID's challenge to evolution is serious enough to compel recognition of it as a worthy scientific alternative. Although the book obviously was not published for scientists, scientists—as researchers, educators, parents, and citizens—should be deeply concerned about how it will be used, so it is from this perspective that I comment.
After Campbell's introduction, DDPE is organized into four sections of essays followed by five appendices. Campbell states that the book addresses the question, "Should public school science teachers be free to teach the controversies over biological origins?" His introduction sets the tone for the discussion of this question with three false assertions: "ID is a science, a philosophy, and a movement for educational reform." As science, Campbell says, ID is "an argument against the orthodox Darwinian claim that mindless forces—such as variation, inheritance, natural selection, and time—can account for the principal features of the biological world." As a philosophy, it is a "critique of the prevailing philosophy of science that limits explanation to purely physical or material causes." As educational reform, "ID is a public movement to make Darwinism—its evidence, philosophic presuppositions, and rhetorical tactics—a matter of informed, broad, and spirited public discussion."
Science, however, does not consist of "arguments against" anything. People who claim to have a scientific theory must actually do scientific work and produce original, empirical data; but at an October 2002 ID conference, CSC fellow William Dembski, ID's leading intellectual, admitted that while ID has made cultural inroads, it enjoys no scientific success. And in criticizing science's limitation to material, i.e., natural, explanations, Campbell reveals ID to be not a philosophy, but a religious belief that would explain natural phenomena by invoking the only alternative: the supernatural. Campbell, of course, cannot use that term without divulging ID's religious identity, which is the chief obstacle to the Wedge's plans for educational "reform." But the public discussion of "Darwinism" that Campbell seeks to advance toward such reform is nothing more than the usual creationist carping against evolution.
In Part I, "Should Darwinism Be Presented Critically and Comparatively in the Public Schools? Philosophical, Educational, and Legal Issues," Campbell's essay exemplifies not only the dishonesty found throughout the book's ID offerings, but his astonishing misunderstanding of the nature of science and science education. Apparently thinking that readers will forget his denial in the introduction that the book's purpose is to "advocate the theory of ID," he asserts here that "to understand Darwin's argument, to say nothing of the contemporary controversy that it continues to generate, students need to understand Darwinism's dialectical opposite: the intelligent design hypothesis." But modern science education has advanced far beyond Darwin's arguments because modern evolutionary biology has advanced far beyond the science of Darwin's day. Darwin's arguments form the historical backdrop for the current science that supports evolution, and it is this science that must be taught to students in an appropriately digestible form. But even on the premise that Darwin's arguments per se should be taught in public school science classes, it by no means follows that ID must also be taught. ID is not evolution's "dialectical opposite" in any substantive, scientific sense. Such an opposite must perforce be a genuinely scientific theory supported by original data produced by a genuinely scientific methodology—a feat that ID proponents have never even attempted. To the extent that ID is an opposite of any sort to evolutionary theory, it is so in a purely rhetorical, and thus scientifically insignificant, sense.
"Teaching the Controversy: Is It Science, Religion, or Speech?," the essay by law professor David DeWolf, philosopher Stephen C. Meyer, and attorney Mark DeForrest, was first published in the Utah Law Review (2000). Crafted as an attempt to evade the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark anticreationism ruling, Edwards vs. Aguillard (1987), it reflects the Wedge's desire for a legal test case. It is built around the hypothetical case of science teacher "John Spokes" (a sophomoric parody of "Scopes"), who wants to modify the approved science curriculum he teaches to include instruction about putative evidence found by the "growing minority of scientists" who see "real, not just apparent, design in biological systems." Wanting only to "teach the controversy," Spokes "wisely" decides to consult school officials to make sure he is "on safe ground." This hypothetical case is a thinly disguised reference to the real case of Roger DeHart, the Burlington, WA, science teacher who taught ID in his public school science class for ten years until a student finally reported him. The Spokes case does not reflect the true story of DeHart, who proceeded neither "wisely" nor truthfully: he never consulted school officials about his plans and failed to honor agreements with his principal about teaching materials. Yet the Discovery Institute supported him to the wire. DeWolf even defended DeHart publicly, comparing him to John Scopes and arguing that the school board should not fear litigation. But had DeHart continued teaching ID—in any of its disguises, e.g., "teaching the controversy"—a lawsuit would have been a certainty. He eventually left Washington State to teach in a Christian school in California.
Nonetheless, DeWolf et al. argue in DDPE that teaching ID in public schools is not only legal but mandatory, asserting that Edwards does not apply because "design theory is not based on a religious text or doctrine" (a claim I refute elsewhere). Conveniently for non-productive Wedge scientists, DeWolf et al. assert that "the legal and educational point at issue is not whether design theorists are right in their scientific claims but whether their work may be discussed in science classrooms of public high schools." On the contrary, whether they are right on the science is at issue, and they are not right. But scientists will not be burdened with making that assessment: the authors place the responsibility of scientific peer-review on the backs of teachers and school boards, who must assess "the work of scientists such as [Michael] Behe, [Dean] Kenyon, [Charles] Thaxton, [Walter] Bradley, [Stephen] Meyer, [Paul] Chien, [Jonathan] Wells, [William] Dembski and others" to determine whether it has "a legitimate place in a public school biology classroom." Among those named, Meyer and Dembski are not scientists at all; and the others, who are, have produced no ID science to review.
DeWolf et al. close on a further deceptive note, suggesting that prohibiting ID in public schools makes a lawsuit more likely than allowing it. Casting the issue as one of academic freedom and "viewpoint discrimination," they assure readers that "a school board that encouraged an open discussion of the issue [Wedge code for teaching ID], consistent with the best science, would reduce the likelihood of litigation by any party." The Discovery Institute's goal, however, is not to prevent but to precipitate a lawsuit. The Wedge strategy is to persuade school boards that "teaching the controversy" will reduce the likelihood of litigation—knowing full well that a board's adoption of ID under any guise virtually guarantees it.
A Discovery Institute spokesman confirmed this during the Wedge's well-publicized Ohio effort: "All we need is one state to stand up and say we are going to permit academic freedom [more ID code] on this issue, a test case." Tellingly, the first Wedge figure to surface prominently in Ohio was not a scientist but pro-ID lawyer John Calvert. In a similar episode in Darby, Montana, it was DeWolf himself. Not content with trying to fool science teachers and school boards, DeWolf et al. clearly presume they can fool federal judges, too.
Campbell's and DeWolf et al.'s attempts to mislead readers are no surprise; ID critics know that this is standard Wedge operating procedure. But the essay by Warren Nord, a respected philosopher of religion who writes extensively on religion and education, is particularly misguided and functions as part of the Wedge's enterprise. Nord believes religion should be taught in public schools, a position that presents no problem provided such instruction is free from religious advocacy. Teaching comparative religion is a good idea. He does seem to favor advocacy (not to mention a medieval view of history) when he complains that "history texts teach students to think in secular ways about religion; they do not teach students religious ways of thinking about history." (His complaint reflects a similar conceptual shift increasingly evident among evangelicals in which "secular" is misunderstood as "anti-religious" rather than "non-religious.")
Nord's view here is troubling in itself to those who value secular government and education, but a problem more immediately relevant to the subject of ID surfaces in his opening words: "I am not going to argue that students should be required to learn about intelligent design (ID) theory because it is a better or more reasonable theory than its naturalistic counterparts. I don't know whether it is. Instead, I am going to argue that some study of ID theory should be included in the curriculum because there is substantial disagreement about whether ID is a better theory and the disagreement is of such kind that educators are obligated to teach students about it." Here is the problem: Nord should know that ID is not a better theory and that the only "substantial disagreement" comes from the Discovery Institute and its creationist supporters.
Nord discusses teaching ID as part of the issue involving the relationship between science and religion, as when he observes that students "must be sensitive to religious alternatives to secular ways of making sense of nature." He is correct to do this; ID is religion. Yet whether he frames the discussion this way intentionally is unclear since he is so confused about the nature of both science and science education and about the difference between science and religion. He complains, "Science texts ... never include any substantive discussion of the relationship of religion to scientific method." Yet this omission is explained by the fact that there is no relationship between religion and scientific method, at least not in science. Science comprises many disciplines and specialties, but in the midst of its diversity there is an epistemological (empirical) and methodological (naturalistic) unity that provides a common basis of inquiry for scientists who themselves reflect the world's religious diversity. Science gives them ways to adjudicate their scientific disagreements. But their religious diversity will persist because of the absence of a comparable epistemology and methodology for resolving the disagreements fundamental to the religious diversity of supernatural religions. If the supernatural exists, even Nobel laureates have neither the cognitive faculties nor a methodology for verifying it.
Nord's argument for "taking ID seriously as science" reflects his misunderstanding of the epistemology and methodology of science. Claiming incompetence to address the question of how many scientists take ID seriously and what research ID has contributed to science (an incompetence that could easily have been remedied by visiting Medline, where the answer to both questions is found to be "zero"), he feels competent to assert that, in science, "methodological naturalism functions much as does Scripture for religious fundamentalists: just as fundamentalists are not open (in principle) to scientific evidence that falsifies Scripture, so methodological naturalists are not open (in principle) to nonnaturalistic evidence, claims, or theories that might be taken to falsify established science. ... [U]nless methodological naturalism is itself open to potential falsification, this commitment will be ... an uncritical faith." Nord apparently does not understand that justification for methodological naturalism is purely pragmatic. While the concept of falsification is relevant to the propositional content—the what—of science, it is inapplicable to the methodology—the how—that produces this content. Propositions are either true or false, and methodologies are either workable or unworkable. Period.
Nord's criticism of methodological naturalism shows that he has swallowed the ID line whole. He would profit more from reading science and talking to scientists, in order to understand their methodology, than from relying on Wedge founder Phillip Johnson, whom he credits for his insights about naturalism but who is similarly misguided (or more likely in Johnson's case, disingenuous). Nord exemplifies the support ID enjoys among academics who should know better but—hindered by prior religious loyalties— don't. DDPE will not help these people correct their errors; however, people of faith who properly understand the boundary between science and religion should take the book as an incentive to present to the world a more informed religious faith than Nord offers in this essay. (This has been done to some extent in Keith Miller's excellent book, Perspectives on an Evolving Creation.)
The articles in Part II, "Scientific Critique of Biology Textbooks and Contemporary Evolutionary Theory," and Part III, "The Theory of Intelligent Design: A Scientific Alternative to Neo-Darwinian and/or Chemical Evolutionary Theories," are standard ID fare and merit little discussion; most can be found on the Internet in some version. Given Wedge members' practice of endlessly recycling the same material, the ID arguments in these essays have already been capably and exhaustively critiqued. All seek to discredit the naturalistic methodology of science. The sole nod to real science is ID critic Massimo Pigliucci's "Where Do We Come From? A Humbling Look at the Biology of Life's Origin." Pigliucci, a working biologist, writes with honesty and good humor. But science teachers need not buy the book for this essay; it is reprinted from the September/October1999 Skeptical Inquirer. One of the ID essays, however, deserves special attention; it is an amalgam of the unbecoming features of the others.
"The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang," by Stephen C. Meyer, Marcus Ross, Paul Nelson, and Paul Chien—all Wedge members—is a slight reworking of a 2001 version posted on the Internet with only Meyer, Nelson, and Chien as co-authors. The article centers around the significance of early Cambrian fossils in China. The Discovery Institute has made the "Cambrian explosion" a centerpiece of teaching resources available on its website; and with respect to teaching materials, the credentials of authors become especially relevant.
For teachers who lack the requisite scientific expertise to assess the reliability of such material, this article is a glaring example of the importance of being able to trust those credentials. The addition of Ross as a co-author is probably intended to create a façade of scientific authority. He studies paleontology—but as a doctoral student, not as a working scientist. Yet unseasoned as he may be, he is the only author with any formal paleontology training. Meyer, as stated, is a philosopher, as is Paul Nelson. Nelson, moreover, is a young-earth creationist who believes Earth is only 6–10,000 years old, yet he has put his name to an article about fossils that the article acknowledges to be hundreds of millions of years old! One would be hard pressed to find a clearer example of intellectual dishonesty. Marine biologist Paul Chien has no formal training in paleontology. He considers his interest in Cambrian fossils a hobby and has no interest in acquiring the credentials needed to discuss them knowledgeably; he has published no scientific articles on the subject. However, the lack of proper credentials by these authors is not by any means the only feature that should warn teachers—and everyone else—against placing any trust in this article.
ID creationists are exceptionally good at making their traditional creationist viewpoints difficult to detect. One has to know these viewpoints in order to recognize them in ID. Teachers unfamiliar with the creationist tradition may not recognize them here, phrased as they are in seemingly benign scientific jargon, as when Meyer et al. contend that disparate animal body plans, evidence of disparate phyla, appear abruptly in the Cambrian period. They assert that these body plans "do not grade imperceptibly into another, either at a specific time in geological history or over the course of geological time" and that "the persistence of morphological distance between Cambrian animals is not an artifact of a classification system." Trying to disguise creationist canards with seemingly sophisticated scientific analysis, they assert the absence of "transitional intermediates" that would disclose the path of Precambrian natural selection that eventuated in Cambrian life forms: "Not only have expected life forms not turned up, but the pattern of the sudden appearance of novel structure has become more pronounced."
But Meyer et al. are merely rephrasing the "scientific creationism" of young-earth creationist Henry Morris: "[A]ll the kingdoms, phyla and classes in the organic world have been essentially unchanged since life began, and ... even the orders and most of the families, genera, and even species appear suddenly in the fossil record, with no incipient forms leading up to them. ... [W]hile there may have been changes within the kinds (as provided by creative forethought) [i.e., a designer] ... the kinds have apparently not varied since the beginning, except for those that have become extinct" (Scientific Creationism, 1974, pp. 87–88). The Meyer et al. article is characterized throughout by such linguistic camouflage.
Just prior to their inevitable pitch for ID, Meyer et al.—true to their creationist forebears—speculate that "Perhaps the Precambrian rocks do not record transitional intermediates and ancestors for Cambrian animals because none existed." But the existence of Precambrian ancestors is documented, and Meyer, Nelson and Chien knew—or should have known—about the relevant work in progress when they wrote their 2001 essay. They had access at the time to an important article in the 2000 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (J. Y. Chen et al., 97: 4457–4462) attesting to the significance of fossils from the Doushanto Formation in China: "The latest Precambrian ... has yielded trace fossils of unmistakable bilaterian origin. ... These remains indicate that major evolutionary diversification of animals already had occurred by the onset of the Cambrian, and, therefore, more remote ancestral forms must have been alive earlier."
The irony here is that the Discovery Institute had helped to organize a 1999 conference in China on these fossils, and Paul Chien attempted for several years (for DI's own purposes) to cultivate the Chinese paleontologists who discovered them. Since the PNAS article, another has appeared in Science (3 June 2004) confirming the Precambrian ancestry of the Doushanto fossils: "Ten phosphatized specimens of a small ... animal displaying clear bilaterian features have been recovered from the Doushanto Formation, China, 40 to 55 million years before the Cambrian. ... These fossils provide the first evidence confirming the phylogenetic inference that Bilateria arose well before the Cambrian." But it's a safe bet that Meyer et al. will dismiss these findings. No amount of fossil data will induce them to admit they are hoaxing their readers.
The only saving grace of DDPE—though a small one—is Part IV, "Critical Responses." Seven of the twelve essays are pro-evolution, but not all are of equal quality. Rhetorician Celeste Michelle Condit's essay, "The Rhetoric of Intelligent Design," is particularly good. She states bluntly, and correctly, that "Intelligent design theory simply repeats the pattern of the long history of rational advocacy for the existence of God." Much of her discussion is substantive, although in framing the issue as a rhetorical one she risks making her criticisms irrelevant. By understanding ID advocates as attempting to "increase the scope of religious discourse" so that the latter will "supplant scientific method," she marginalizes her own criticisms. ID is not in any important sense a rhetorical problem. Campbell's earlier avowal in his introduction that teaching "the controversy" will "advance public understanding of both the nature and rhetoric of science" is simply a red herring to steer readers away from the fact that there is no real scientific controversy over evolution to teach and that ID is scientifically bankrupt. Teaching ID poses a pedagogical problem and a constitutional problem, making it an ultimately cultural problem in the first instance and, more immediately, a political problem in the second.
The pro-evolution essays all make useful points, but they are not sufficient to neutralize the book's heavy-hanging deceitfulness. One suspects that only with their inclusion was the book able to clear the barriers to publication at a presumably selective academic press. A more cynical explanation is that Campbell and Mayer used them as a source of vicarious legitimacy—a well-known Wedge tactic and one that ID proponents, lacking scientific legitimacy, are forced to employ. The unfortunate aspect of this strategy is that the pro-science contributors have become—one hopes unwittingly—the Wedge's pawns. (A Discovery Institute plan to publish the proceedings of the above-mentioned China conference failed when legitimate scientists in attendance realized that papers by creationists Jonathan Wells and Paul Nelson would be included and given equal billing with their own.) In allowing their essays to be included, the pro-evolution contributors to this volume have rendered a scholarly courtesy to ID proponents; but their work now becomes fuel for the ID public relations machine. It is time to question whether observing such rules of academic etiquette with creationists is serving the cause for which those who defend science speak.
Unsurprisingly, the honest scholars and scientists do not get the last word. That goes to creationist sympathizers and, last, to Phillip Johnson, who thinks that ID's biggest obstacle is "to overcome the prejudice that says that to attribute anything in biology to a Designer is to engage in ‘religion’ rather than ‘science’." If this is Johnson's concern, he really should speak to his Wedge colleague Nancy Pearcey, who, as did Johnson, contributed an essay to William Dembski's recent book, Uncommon Dissent. Pearcey writes, "By uncovering evidence that natural phenomena are best accounted for by Intelligence, Mind, and Purpose, the theory of Intelligent Design reconnects religion to the realm of public knowledge. It takes Christianity out of the sphere of noncognitive value and restores it to the realm of objective fact, so that it can once more take a place at the table of public discourse" (72–73).
Darwinism, Design, and Public Education thus ends as it begins. Michigan State University Press has unfortunately rewarded the Wedge's creationists with its institutional prestige; but when their supporters cite this book to school boards as evidence of ID's scientific viability, its publication will not redound to the press's credit. DDPE is more aptly titled Alice Through the Looking Glass, where people who have never done any science want to revolutionize it. Darwinian evolution becomes indecipherable and unteachable without the counterbalance of "intelligent design theory." Non-scientists who advocate a pre-modern view of science want to "modernize" science education. Scientists should read it, but only so they can fight its influence on the education of those who will one day do science and those who will be called upon to support it.
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