Review of Chapter Sixteen

Legacy route: /cs/pigdid_ch16/ Review of Chapter Sixteen Mark Perakh reviews Chapter 16, wherein Jonathan Wells engages in a massive fit of projection to try to smear evolutionary biologists with the heritage of Trofim D. Lysenko. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design Review: Whose Head is Ugly? Jonathan Wells and Lysenkoism (Chapter 16) Posted by Mark Perakh on August 29, 2006 12:00 AM Jonathan Wells (2006) The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design . Regnery Publishing, Inc. Washington, DC. Amazon Read the entire series. I’ll address in this article chapter sixteen, “American Lysenkoism”, in Jonathan Wells’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design . As Wells (1994) explained, he went to study biology at the behest of his spiritual “father” the Reverend Sun-Myung Moon, with an explicit goal to devote his life to “destroying Darwinism”. Since he set out to destroy “Darwinism” before having sufficiently familiarized himself with it, this immediately points to his lack of impartiality when dealing with “Darwinism.” Wells’s goal was not to evaluate “Darwinism” on its merits but to search for any arguments, regardless of their merits, which would serve his goal set in advance. This alone is a strong warning to the consumers of Wells’s literary output: take Wells’s arguments with a good dose of salt; he is not an unbiased judge of evidence, but a partisan of an anti-evolution effort whose goal is not to find the truth but to prove his viewpoint regardless of means. In a box in the margin of chapter sixteen Wells writes: “Lysenkoism is now rearing its ugly head in the US, as Darwinists use their government positions to destroy the careers of their critics.” Really? Thousands of biologists in the USSR at the time of Lysenko’s reign were arrested, exiled to Siberia, and many of them shot in the basements of the notorious Lubyanka prison, while intelligent design advocates in the US thrive on lavish donations from ultra-religious sources, have their own publishing outlets, lecture all over the country without any interference from genuine scientists, endlessly appear on TV and radio shows, and enjoy support from the extreme right-wing pundits and commentators? Readers having even a minimal knowledge of the actual situation immediately see that no reasonable discourse can be expected from a writer so brazenly misrepresenting the reality. Which “government positions” does Wells have in mind? Are “Darwinists” holding all (or most) positions in the present Republican administration? Are they in command of the Congress? Perhaps Wells wanted to really say that “Darwinists” occupy many positions of authority in universities. This is certainly true. By the same token the “Newtonists”, and “Einsteinists”, and “Maxwellists”, and “Boltzmannists” occupy positions of authority in universities as well, while Wells would perhaps like to see “Moonists” in such positions instead. If indeed “Darwinists” (Wells’s term for modern biologists) are predominant in biological science, it is for good reason. Evolutionary biology is a robust science whose fruits are proven to be of great use in technology, medicine, agriculture, and many other fields. On the other hand Wells’s co-travelers, the “intelligent design” activists, have yet to show any, even very modest, contribution to science. Why should they get any position of authority anywhere besides their own outlets such as the infamous Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute of Seattle? Despite the abject lack of any positive contribution to the society from the CSC, which “Darwinists” have ever “destroyed careers” of its fellows, such as Wells? Wells and his colleagues in the anti-evolution enterprise thrive despite their destructive activity aimed at “destroying” biological science. They receive good salaries and grants, travel all over the globe assaulting biological science, and often also occupy positions in legitimate universities despite the egregious lack of substance in their favorite “intelligent design” “theory”. This is still a free country, and there is no alleged nefarious activity by scientists aimed at muzzling “intelligent design” activists, who are free to spread their nonsense as suggested by Wells, along with the proponents of a flat earth or of astrology, or of geomancy, palm reading, “creation science”, and all other fads and fallacies which usually are much more popular than genuine science. There is indeed an “ugly head rearing in the US”, and it is that of “intelligent design” activism. I shall discuss now specific notions in Wells’s screed used by Wells to mislead his readers. The chapter in question deals with the alleged manifestations of “Lysenkoism” in the US. This term stems from the sad story of the destruction of the thriving biological science in the USSR under the guidance of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (Трофим Денисович Лысенко), which started in the late twenties of the 20 th century and ended in the seventies. Lysenko was a poorly educated but politically savvy agrobiologist, who for decades managed to get an unconditional support from the tyrannical ruler of the USSR, first Joseph Stalin and later Nikita Khrushchev. He indeed used his power to “destroy the careers” of many scientists, who either held views differing from those of Lysenko or just earned his hostility for arbitrary reasons. “Destroying” careers often extended to arrests and exiles of Lysenko’s victims, who were sometimes even killed. At a minimum they were deprived of their jobs and of any means to conduct their research. Wells wants his readers to believe that the “Darwinists” allegedly occupying “government positions” in the USA treat the critics of “Darwinism” the same way Lysenko treated the biologists in the USSR. Of course, Wells cannot support such an assertion by any factual evidence, therefore he resorts to a rather transparent shenanigans to somehow “prove” his point. He uses several means to achieve his goals, including misquotations and sometimes bold lies. Quotemining Here is an example. Wells refers to my essay (Perakh 2004a) wherein I described my personal experience regarding the “Lysenkoism” in the USSR. The essay in question is a part of an article co-authored by Wesley R. Elsberry and myself. The article consists of two separate parts: a part written by Elsberry and a part written by myself. While I do not wish to appear to be promoting my own essay, readers who really want to know what was written there instead of relying on Wells’s misrepresentation can easily verify my words by looking up my essay. It can be accessed either in an HTML version (Perakh 2004a) or in a PDF version (Perakh 2004b). Wells provides a quotation from my essay and gives it in a rather peculiar form, amounting to a deliberate distortion of my thesis. Here is how Wells quotes from my essay: Retired physicist Mark Perakh, who grew up in the former Soviet Union, writes: “The anti-Lysenkoist stand of the ID advocates is … ludicrous given the similarity of their denial of Darwinian biology to the denial of the neo-Darwinian synthesis by the Lysenkoists.” Perakh continues :” From my experience both with Marxism and with the realities of the Soviet system, I can assert that … it is ID advocates whose behavior is reminiscent of the oppressive Soviet regime” since they subject Darwinists to “continuous denunciations, verbal assaults, derision, and ultimately to dismissal from their positions.” (p. 182) A brief look at the actual text of my essay immediately reveals that the alleged quotation has been constructed by Wells by means of some tricks. He transposed various sentences from my essay, placing those that occur somewhere later in the text, ahead of some other that in fact occur earlier in the text. He used ellipsis in several cases, apparently to hide from readers the exact wording of my essay. He combined partial quotes taken from different parts of my essay in an allegedly single sentence thus fraudulently attributing to me something I did not say. Here are some details. The sentence in the above quotation, starting with the words “The anti-Lysenkoist stand” and ending with the words “synthesis by Lysenkoists” occurs in my text several pages later than the sentence starting with the words “From my experience both” and ending with the words “oppressive Soviet regime.” Wells has transposed these two sentences, placing a sentence that occurs much later in the text, ahead of a sentence, which in fact precedes it by several pages. He inserts the words “Perakh continues” thus exacerbating his distortion by falsely asserting the order in which my sentences appear, opposite to their actual order of appearance. This way he creates a false impression that the latter sentence is a continuation of the former, which it is not. The insertion by Wells of his own words “Perakh continues” is a testimony to Wells’s intentionally contrived misleading of readers. Since both sentences are nevertheless indeed present in my text (but in an opposite order), some readers may try to justify Well’s “creative quoting” by pointing out that this is a minor infraction that does not affect the gist of his argument. Perhaps this is indeed a minor point, but being contrary to the common rules or proper quotations, it is indicative of the overall doubtful reliability of Wells’s quotation habits, where the strict adherence to facts is not of paramount importance. I will not discuss here the parts of my actual text replaced by Wells with ellipsis, but will rather point out now to a really egregious example of quote mining by Wells, which amounts to a direct fraud. Here is how Wells quotes from my text: From my experience both with Marxism and with the realities of the Soviet system, I can assert that … it is ID advocates whose behavior is reminiscent of the oppressive Soviet regime” since they subject Darwinists to “continuous denunciations, verbal assaults, derision, and ultimately to dismissal from their positions.” And here is the actual text in my essay: From my experience both with Marxism and with the realities of the Soviet system, I can assert that in the dispute between the Intelligent Design advocates and their opponents, including pro-evolution scientists, it is ID advocates whose behavior is reminiscent of the oppressive Soviet regime. Comparing Wells’s quotation with the actual text of my essay, we immediately notice that my actual text ends with the words “Soviet regime” and a period, whereas Wells quotation contains additionally the words: “since they subject Darwinists to ‘continuous denunciations, verbal assaults, derision, and ultimately to dismissal from their positions.’” While readers may be confused by this discrepancy, I’ll clarify now how Wells’s shenanigan works. First, the words “since they subject Darwinists to” are inserted by Wells; they are not part of my text. As to the rest of the added words, they are indeed found in my text but are taken by Wells from a page in my text which is many pages further in the text than the preceding phrase ending with “Soviet regime.” Where these words occur, they relate to a different topic, having nothing to do with “intelligent design” advocates. By fraudulently combining in one sentence two unrelated quotations, plus inserting several words of his own, Wells misleads readers, apparently aiming to create a false impression that I accuse “intelligent design” advocates of subjecting “Darwinists” to “dismissal from their positions.” In fact the second quoted phrase describes not the behavior of “intelligent design” advocates but rather the behavior of the Soviet authorities at the time of Lysenko’s reign. Of course “intelligent design” activists do not “subject evolutionary biologists to dismissal from their position”. They certainly would be happy to do so (see the proof of that statement in my essay, Perakh 2004a), but their hands fortunately are too short for that. They must limit themselves to verbal assaults. Misquotation is a device used when no arguments of substance are available, as is the case of Wells fighting modern biology. While Wells’s “creative quoting” is in itself a telltale testimony to the dismal level of his unscrupulous discourse, it is just a secondary component of his narration which is substandard all over. Lamarckism One of Wells’s theses is his asseverations that, first, “Darwinism” includes elements of Lamarckism, and, second, that Lysenko’s pseudo-biology, officially approved in the USSR, was “Darwinist” throughout. Did You Know? Lysenkoism was anti-Darwinian. Lysenkoism rejected the modern synthesis because it didn’t fit with “Marxism-Leninism”. There are more similiarities between “intelligent design” activists and Lysenkoists than between modern biologists and Lysenkoists. With a sufficient desire, it is always possible to find signs of similarity between any, even drastically opposite, systems of views. Wells provides a quote from Darwin which, in his view, is in harmony with Lamarckism. First of all, although Lamarck’s main ideas have been largely abandoned by biological science, it does not mean that everything Lamarck believed was necessarily wrong. In fact Lamarck was a serious scientist, unlike Wells and his friends at the Discovery Institute. There were positive elements in Lamarck’s views, so it is no wonder Darwin, who worked in the pre-genetics age, could find some elements of Lamarckism to be in tune with his own views. However, to assert that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is in any way analogous to Lamarckism is absurd. While Well’s interpretation is his privilege, he seems to be not aware of the most principal difference between the views of Lamarck and Darwin. The inheritance of acquired characteristics was considered “common knowledge” in Darwin’s time, when there was yet no knowledge of genetics, of Mendel’s work and of any other elements of the “modern synthesis”, which is an important part of biological science in our time. Darwin did in fact believe that the transmission of acquired traits could occur, as explicated in his “pangenesis” theory. I am not sure if he thought it was a significant component of heredity, but he indeed postulated that the environment could affect changes both at the “germinal” level and at the “somatic” level, the latter of which would have been “lamarckian” sensu latu . It was a secondary point in Darwin’s system of views, which was discarded many years later with the advent of the modern synthesis. In fact, Darwinian theory differed from Lamarck’s in a very principal way, and no cherry-picked quotations by Wells can prove otherwise. What differentiated Lamarck’s theory of evolution from Darwin’s was that Lamarck believed all species arose and evolved separately and sequentially, i.e. with no (or very limited) common descent, and there was a “vital force” that pushed organisms to evolve along certain lines (very much teleologically). Darwin certainly disagreed with both, and adhered to the view that evolution is given “direction” by the action of selection, and not by intrinsic mechanisms. Creative Darwinism Regarding the allegedly Darwinian essence of the Soviet Lysenkoist pseudo-biology, here Wells displays the same level of ignorance as he demonstrated in his infamous utterance (Wells 2002) wherein he compared evolutionary biologist Kenneth Miller to Heinrich Himmler (the notorious Chief of SS in the Nazi Germany), who, in Wells’s uninformed mind, was the chief of the Nazi propaganda machine (thus confusing Himmler with Goebbels). Wells seems to be unaware of the simple facts of history. In the Soviet system, words rarely were used to denote what their direct meaning implied. Given the expertise of Wells’s colleagues in an Orwellian “newspeak”, he should appreciate the virtuosity achieved by the Soviet doubletalk, in particular in its ostensible adherence to Darwinism. Yes, Darwinism was acclaimed in the USSR as the officially adopted doctrine, allegedly the only one compatible with Marxism-Leninism. There was an important nuance, however. The term “Darwinism” in the USSR was used with a qualifier, “creative Darwinism”, which was in line with the more general but equally ubiquitous term of “Creative Marxism”. The latter term simply meant the most recent decisions of the Communist Party’s leadership, which in Stalin’s time was just Stalin’s personal view. Most often it had nothing to do with the legacy of Marx, or even of Lenin, but whenever Stalin announced his opinion, it was automatically referred to as the great achievement of the “creative Marxism-Leninism”. The succinct expression asserted that “Marxism is not a dogma but a manual for action”. Likewise, whatever Lysenko announced as the new achievement was automatically praised as the further development of “creative Darwinism” for which an alternative term was “Michurinian biology” (Perakh 2004a). More often than not, it had nothing in common with the real Darwinism. Wells seems to be blissfully unaware of all those facts of history. His assertions that Lysenko was a Darwinist are either naively uninformed or deliberately misleading. Wells mentions Lysenko’s notorious experiments with “yarovizatsiya” (i.e. vernalization) of winter crops, without explaining its relation to “Darwinism”. (There was none.) He seems to be unaware of other theories by Lysenko. For example, the omnipotent academician fervently propagated his pet theory asserting that there is no competition for resources within individual species. This idea was radically incompatible with Darwin’s natural selection, although spin experts from the Discovery Institute probably can apply their acrobatic abilities to “prove” that Lysenko’s theory also was Darwinian. (Indeed, they likewise “prove” that Hitler’s racist ideas were based on “Darwinism.” Of course, this assertion has little to do with facts—see, for example Flank 2006 or Walker undated ). On the basis of his theory, Lysenko recommended to plant fruit trees and other cultured plants in packs, so that several plants were planted at the same spot in the soil. Since, as Lysenko claimed, the plants, being members of the same species, will not compete for food and light, they will actually help each other to grow and thrive. Khrushchev fell for Lysenko’s bait and ordered to follow Lysenko’s recommendation, based on “Marxism-Leninism”, according to which members of the same class in the human society are never antagonistic to each other but are united by common interests in the struggle of classes, only the latter being antagonistic. The result was of course disastrous, as the plants stubbornly refused to convert to Marxism and competed for resources despite belonging to the same species and despite the decisions of the “Politburo”. Perhaps Wells simply is not cognizant of these features of Lysenkoism, in which case he should have abstained from proclaiming a judgment on Lysenkoism’s alleged Darwinian roots. Lysenkoism in the US? Isn’t this story reminiscent of the attitude of the “intelligent design” activists like Wells and his colleagues in the “intelligent design” enterprise. Like Lysenko, they stubbornly adhere to their views regardless of facts and evidence. Recall Wells’s admission that his life is devoted to destroying “Darwinism”, whereas the possibility of evidence being in favor of modern biology is never mentioned. The word of the Reverend Moon obviously takes precedence for Wells against all the huge accumulation of empirical material testifying for evolutionary theory. Of course, Wells’s main thesis is not that the “ugly head” of Lysenkoism “is rearing in the US” because evolutionary scientists in any way share Lysenko’s views . Such an assertion would apparently be too much even for Wells. On the other hand there is indeed a lot of similarity between Lysenko’s pseudo-science and “intelligent design”. Lysenkoists re


Ohio

Legacy route: /cs/pigdid_ch16_ohio/ Ohio Richard B. Hoppe takes Wells to task over Wells's misleading version of events in Ohio. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design Review: PIG Ignorant About Ohio Posted by Richard B. Hoppe on August 31, 2006 12:00 PM Jonathan Wells (2006) The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design . Regnery Publishing, Inc. Washington, DC. Amazon Read the entire series. Jonathan Wells has recently written The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design . Wells’s book is stuffed full of misrepresentations, distortions, and plain falsehoods. My Thumb colleagues are reviewing whole chapters, but my purpose here is to focus in some detail on just one of Wells’s claims to illustrate his scurrilous tactics. The claim I focus on is from Chapter 16, “American Lysenkoism”. Mark Perakh has already documented how Wells manipulated partial quotations from Perakh’s earlier essay on Lysenkoism to create misrepresentations of what Perakh actually wrote. Here I will describe Wells’s dishonesty about a specific episode in Ohio last year. In chapter 16 Wells wrote … some Darwinist professors at Ohio State University (OSU)—a public institution—are now trying to destroy another student’s career by preventing him from getting his doctorate. (p. 189) This is the infamous Bryan Leonard affair that I described on the Thumb as it was happening; see “ID vs. Academic Integrity: Gaming the System in Ohio” for the full story. Wells accuses three Ohio State University professors of torpedoing Leonard, saying Although Leonard had gone through normal procedures and received proper approval to conduct his research … [the three professors] accuse Leonard of “unethical” conduct primarily on the grounds that his research was predicated on “a fundamental flaw: there are no valid scientific data challenging macroevolution”. (p. 189) The next sentence in the letter was “Mr. Leonard has been misinforming his students if he teaches them otherwise”. As noted below, what Leonard was teaching was Wells’s Icons of Evolution trash, so he was indeed misinforming his students. Furthermore, Wells claimed The OSU Darwinists then invoked some procedural techicalities—widely ignored in the case of other Ph.D. candidates—to demand that Leonard’s dissertation defense be postponed. (p. 190) Like all creationists, Wells stuffs his screed with false claims (a tactic immortalized as the Gish Gallop , each claim expressed in a sentence but requiring paragraphs to rebut). With respect to the Leonard affair, Wells makes two specific claims, that the professors accused Leonard of unethical behavior and that he failed to follow some “procedural technicalities” that are allegedly widely disregarded at Ohio State. Both of Wells’s claims are misrepresentations, and in making them he also produces some peripheral garbage that requires examination. As background one must know that the three professors—an evolutionary biologist, a paleoanthropologist, and a mathematician—all have appointments as Members of the Graduate Faculty of the Ohio State University. As such, they have specific responsibilities with respect to that university (for the ‘umbrella’ University policy governing those responsibilities see here , especially 3335-5-30 (B)). If they have reason to believe that the regulations of the graduate school are not being followed, as part of their affirmative duty to their employer they must bring that to the attention of the Graduate School. Just as a police officer has the affirmative duty to enforce the law and a physician has the affirmative duty to treat a patient with the patient’s best interests in mind, the members of the graduate faculty have an affirmative duty to ensure that the policies and regulations of the Graduate School are followed. When they become aware of a violation of those policies and regulations they are bound to report it. Failure to do so would violate the terms of their appointment to the graduate faculty. The Ethics Question Now consider the ethics question regarding Leonard’s research. As a graduate student, Leonard had already thrust himself into a policy-making environment as a member of a committee writing lesson plans to instantiate the new state science standards in Ohio, in particular 10 th grade biology. He drafted a lesson plan that contained classic creationist objections to evolutionary theory (the misnamed “ critical analysis of evolution ”). As originally submitted to the State Board of Education the lesson plan contained nine “aspects of evolution” to be “critically analysed”. Eight of the nine came straight out of Wells’s Icons of Evolution , a collection of misrepresentations, distortions, and flat falsehoods. The lesson plan also contained irrelevant “web resources”, including a number of creationist web sites, and at least one outright fake reference, a paper allegedly in Nature that has no existence outside creationist web sites. It was a shoddy piece of creationist propaganda masquerading as a lesson plan. In the Kansas creationism hearings Leonard claimed to have been teaching that creationist trash for years and that his doctoral research focused on whether doing so influenced students’s learning about evolution. When Leonard drew public attention to his work at the Kansas creationist hearings, the three OSU professors, aware of Leonard’s status as a graduate student, asked whether Leonard’s dissertation research had been properly reviewed and approved by OSU’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). Operating under federal laws and regulations, IRBs are charged with ensuring that research performed with human subjects are ethical and meet legal requirements for informed consent, among other things. Failure to conform to requirements can have substantial negative effects on a university. IRBs are particularly vigilant about the use of minors as subjects of research. Given that Leonard’s lesson plan draft contained a series of falsehoods about evolutionary biology, and given that in Kansas Leonard testified about his (as yet unpublished) research, the question arose as to whether Leonard had appropriately informed the IRB and the parents of his students that he was teaching scientific trash in order to assess its effects on their children and whether he had received appropriate permissions to do so. To my knowledge that question has still not been answered. The “Procedural Technicalities” Question As noted, Wells claimed that in addition to the IRB question, the three OSU professors “invoked some procedural technicalities—widely ignored in the case of other Ph.D. candidates—to demand that Leonard’s dissertation defense be postponed” (p. 190). What “procedural technicalities” did the professors raise? Simple: They pointed out that contrary to Graduate School requirements, Leonard’s dissertation defense committee had no members from the program in which he was seeking a degree . That is, while Leonard was seeking a degree from the program in science education, no one from that program was on his committee. Instead, there was a member from the technology education program (his advisor), one from entomology, one from human nutrition, and a “graduate school representative” from the Department of French & Italian! It’s as though Leonard were seeking certification in neurosurgery before an examining committee consisting of a dermatologist, a ob/gyn, a chiropracter, and a truck driver. Not even Leonard’s advisor is in the program from which he sought a degree! As one commenter on my earlier post remarked, looking just at that committeee one has no idea where Leonard was supposedly seeking a degree. Two of the members of Leonard’s committee have one property in common: they are “intelligent design” activists. Glenn Needham and Robert Disilvestro are publicly self-identified with the “intelligent design” movement. DiSilvestro testified (note his denial of common descent ) in the Kansas creationism hearings with Leonard ( who also denied common descent ), and Needham testified to the validity of Leonard’s lesson plan at the Ohio State Board of Education. In addition, until the brouhaha erupted Leonard’s advisor, Paul E. Post, had links to a variety of Christian sites, including at least one “intelligent design” site, on his personal OSU web site, When the fiasco became public those links immediately disappeared. The fourth member of Leonard’s committee, an assistant professor of French & Italian, had never before served as graduate school representative on a defense committee and had no qualifications appropriate to Leonard’s area of research. The three professors who brought the anomalies to the attention of the graduate school did not “… demand that Leonard’s dissertation defense be postponed”, as Wells falsely claims, but rather requested that the Graduate School look into very serious questions surrounding the conduct of Leonard’s research and the composition of his defense committee. An administrator in the Graduate School and the head of the program from which Leonard was seeking a Ph.D. began inquiries regarding the anomalous composition of Leonard’s committee. At that, the graduate school representative (the assistant professor of French & Italian) withdrew, and a replacement—the Dean of the College of Biological Sciences, who was qualified to evaluate a dissertation on the teaching of evolution—was appointed. Within 24 hours of that replacement, Leonard’s defense was postponed at the request of his advisor . The graduate school did not postpone Leonard’s defense, his advisor did so when a qualified person was appointed to the defense committee. Finally, Wells’s claims that this “procedural technicality”—not having any qualified examiners on a dissertation defense committee—is “… widely ignored in the case of other Ph.D. candidates …”. Wells is here claiming that the Ohio State University routinely awards Ph.D.s to students whose committees are unqualified to assess the students’s work! That is a breathtaking accusation to make about the Graduate School of the Ohio State University. Wells provides no evidence whatsoever for this extraordinary claim. It merely stands in unsupported thin air. Wells flatly libels a distinguished research university in aid of his sectarian agenda. Conclusion I have to say it must be easy to write as Wells does. Need a “fact”? Make it up. Find an inconvenient fact? Ignore it. Need a quotation? Quotemine a genuine scientist, pasting together bits and pieces from pages apart in the original to make it say something the original wouldn’t recognize. Wells has no shred of intellectual honesty, and has a true soulmate in Salvador Cordova, who was quoted in Nature as saying The critical thinking and precision of science began to really affect my ability to just believe something without any tangible evidence. Wells hasn’t been affected one whit by the precision and critical thinking of science. He blatantly misrepresents an episode for which documentation exists in the public domain that flatly contradicts his distortions. He wholly ignores that documentation in favor of a tissue of misrepresentations and plain falsehoods, and libels a distinguished university to boot. But Wells can’t be bothered with that. He has an agenda: to destroy Darwinism for purely religious reasons, and the facts—and the Ohio State University—be damned. Did You Know? The Ohio State University requires that faculty members on dissertation defense committees be qualified in the subject matter of the dissertation? Wells calls that requirement a “procedural technicality”. Did Wells have anyone qualified on his committee?


Legacy route: /cs/pt_reviews_pigdid/ PT Reviews "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design" A number of the contributors to the Panda's Thumb weblog review chapters from "intelligent design" advocate Jonathan Wells's 2006 book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design . The book proved to be a farrago of quote mines, obfuscation , misleading rhetoric, and just plain false claims. Introduction Review of Chapter One Review of Chapter Three Review of Chapter Nine Review of Chapter Ten Review of Chapter Fifteen Review of Chapter Sixteen


Quixotic References

Legacy route: /cs/qrefs/ Quixotic References [Return to The Quixotic Message ] [1] The claim that scientists by the thousands are joining the ID movement, and that it's just a matter of time before the rest see the light, is a propaganda technique known as inevitable victory , and is frequently employed by the ID movement. Very strange it is then that IDist press releases and newspaper articles keep mentioning the same handful of names over and over again, year after year, particularly Dembksi, Wells, and Behe, as if these guys just happen to be a sample of the thousands who are joining in the movement. (Just for clarity, Behe is the only one out of those three who can fairly be called a scientist.) For numerous examples of IDist/creationist proclamations of imminent success, see The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism by Glenn Morton: "In recent reading of Dembski and other ID proponents I saw them make a claim which has been made for over 40 years. This claim is one that the young-earthers have been making. The claim is that the theo ry of evolution (or major supporting concepts for it) is increasingly being abandoned by scientists, or is about to fall. This claim has many forms and has been made for over 162 years." [2] IDists are very keen to protect their image by claiming that they're not creationists, and that they're not even anti-evolutionists. But then their latest tactic for getting ID into public schools is to "teach the evidence against evolution". Consider the crowing that they've done about a poll in Ohio: Darwin Would Love This Debate : "Which option ("A" or "B") represents your view? "A. Biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it." "B. Biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it." "Only 15 percent of adults nationally, according to a 2001 Zogby poll, agree with "A," while 71 percent agree with "B." (Not sure: 14 percent.) " This is a perfect example of a loaded question, because it makes people think that there actually is evidence against evolution, and if this is true, then how can it be objectionable to teach it? IDists also say that what they want is for "origins science", as they call it, to be taught "objectively". When they say "objective" what they really mean is giving equal weight to ID arguments, as if a truly objective and knowledgeable person would find them legitimate. George Orwell would be proud. In a sense though, they're right about one thing: referring to ID as "the evidence against evolution" is somewhat appropriate, since it really is nothing more than a collection of criticisms, albeit bad ones. [3] There is very little consistency in IDist beliefs, even among the prominent leaders of the movement. Michael Behe, for example, accepts an ancient Earth and common descent, but does not believe that natural processes can account for all of evolution. In contrast, Philip Johnson staunchly denies common descent. Paul Nelson, in further contrast, is a young Earth creationist. Obviously, at least two of these people are seriously wrong about one or more major aspects of their beliefs, yet the ID movement does everything it can to downplay these differences. Amazingly, they claim that drawing conclusions about these scientific issues, which are precisely what they've been arguing about all along, is not even relevant! To the best of my knowledge, Behe is the only prominent IDist who unequivocally accepts evolution (although he heaps praise upon those who argue against it). Most of the others can be safely classified as creationists, or they're much too circumspect for anyone to know just what they believe. But don't call them creationists -- they'll go bonkers and accuse you of misrepresentation. In fact, the ID movement gets a lot of rhetorical mileage out of claiming that they're being stereotyped by "Dogmatic Darwinists" who are trying to persecute and discredit them by linking them to creationism. But not only is it true that most of them are creationists, it's also true that the ID movement uses essentially the same tactics and has the exact same overriding goals as those of the old-school movement: Religious apologetics and "cultural renewal". [4] This is a major part of the "Wedge strategy" formulated by Philip Johnson. The idea is to advocate a scientific theory (or more correctly, an objection to an existing theory) by avoiding the details at all costs, thereby allowing numerous mutually exclusive viewpoints to exist under the same "Big Tent". The details, according to Johnson, can be worked out later, after the Evil Empire has been defeated. Won't that be fun to watch. The Wedge strategy is purely political. A real scientific movement would vigorously debate the differences held among its members, as do evolutionary biologists. The irony is that it's hard to know just what if anything the IDists are objecting to, because they refuse to go into specifics. This has the added benefit of making them extremely slippery in debate. See this interview with Johnson for more: "So the question is: "How to win?" That's when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing"-the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do. They'll ask, "What do you think of Noah's flood?" or something like that. Never bite on such questions because they'll lead you into a trackless wasteland and you'll never get out of it." [5] Creationists and neo-creationists absolutely love the argument from authority, presumably because it fits in well with their authoritarian world-view. The irony is that scientific authority is almost universally against them when it comes to evolution. The Discovery Institute has made a big deal about its 100 scientists, even though the statement that they signed does not mention ID, and it's language is largely noncontroversial: Discovery Institute pdf Doubting Darwinism Through Creative License. (NCSE) Compare their list to a poll of Ohio scientists , or a letter opposing ID sent by 80 scientific organizations . The predictable IDist retort is to claim that the scientific community is too biased to judge things fairly, which makes one wonder why they seek scientific authority in the first place. [6] See Becoming a Disciplined Science: Prospects, Pitfalls, and Reality Check for ID by Bill Dembski. This was a keynote speech of his at the 2002 RADIP conference in which he proposes ways for ID to be become a "disciplined science". His proposals for "scientific research" are nothing more than suggestions on how the ID movement can sharpen its polemical skills: "Building a design curriculum is educational in the broadest sense. It includes not just textbooks, but everything from research monographs for professors and graduate students to coloring books for preschoolers. [...] "Do the same names associated with intelligent design keep coming up in print or are we constantly adding new names? Are we fun to be around? Do we have a colorful assortment of characters? Other things being equal, would you rather party with a design theorist or a Darwinist? "These, then, are my recommendations for turning intelligent design into a disciplined science." To answer his question, I would much rather party with a design "theorist". Anyone who can do what they do with a straight face has got to be good at telling jokes. :-) [7] Time and time again we're told that evolutionary theory is somehow sorely lacking, but when asked how well ID "theory" can stack up to it in terms of explaining the natural world, we're told that ID doesn't have to, because, well, just because. This makes it not only a "different kind of theory" than evolution, it makes it different from any scientific theory, past or present. See this ISCID Brainstrorms thread containing posts by Bill Dembski; many other examples could be given: "You've charged me with moving the goalposts and adjusting the definition of irreducible complexity because I require of evolutionary biologists to "connect the dots" in a causally convincing way. The dots here are functional precursors that could conceivably have evolved into the final system of interest. [...] "As for your example, I'm not going to take the bait. You're asking me to play a game: "Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position." ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots." [8] Here's an excerpt from The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth? by Brian Spitzer, which is a critical review of Philip Johnson's Darwin on Trial : "It is useless to try to explain science to someone who isn't interested in what the facts have to say. And it's useless to try to learn anything from such people. If they are clever, as Johnson is, they can find a way to claim that almost any fact supports their position. If evolutionists agree on something, it's a dogmatic orthodoxy; if they disagree, they're squabbling about every detail of evolutionary theory. ..." This tactic is frequently encountered on debate fora as well, though it's probably unintentional most of the time. An ID advocate will pull out a "maverick" scientist who takes a different view on things, and then claim that this is somehow evidence of evolutionary theory's deficiency. But why are all of these scientists against ID? Dogmatic orthodoxy, of course... [9] The ID movement's claim that Darwinists are driven by religious and/or ideological motivations is so glaringly hypocritical, it serves as its own parody. The leaders of the movement are very careful to do what they can to downplay their own biases, at least for public mass consumption (they tend to be a bit less coy in front of religious audiences). Here are the two specific examples alluded to: Evolving Banners at the Discovery Institute . (NCSE) The Center's Name Change (C(R)SC) [10] Lest anyone thinks this is an exaggeration, simply check out Bill Dembksi's forward to Discovery Institute Fellow Benjamin Wiker's book, Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists . This article is a masterpiece of hypocrisy, even by Dembski's standards. (And the title of Wiker's book should tell you a thing or two as well.): "Understanding this movement [Darwinism] is absolutely key to understanding the current culture war. Believers in God often scratch their heads about western culture's continual moral decline. What was unacceptable just a few years ago is today's alternative lifestyle and tomorrow's preferred lifestyle. Abortion, euthanasia, divorce, sexual preference, and drug abuse are just a few of the moral issues that have undergone massive changes in public perception. [...] "Epicurus's most prominent disciple is without question Charles Darwin. Darwinism is not only the most recent incarnation of Epicurean philosophy but also the most potent formulation of that philosophy to date. Darwinism's significance consists in the purported scientific justification it brings to the Epicurean philosophy. But the science itself is weak and ad hoc. As Wiker shows, Darwinism is essentially a moral and metaphysical crusade that fuels our contemporary moral debates. Furthermore, Wiker argues that the motivation behind Darwinism today is its alternative moral and metaphysical vision rather than the promotion of science. "Wiker's project has nothing to do with scapegoating Epicurus, Darwin, or anyone else for that matter." Sure Dr. Dembski, sure . Blaming the all of the world's problems, real or perceived, on just one scientific theory isn't scapegoating. Nah ... [11] To be fair, disparaging the contradictory philosophies that Darwinian evolution has supposedly spawned has been a long-standing staple of the old-school creationists, and it is far easier to find examples of this coming from them than it is to find it from the neo-creationists. But ID's big tent has welcomed the old-schoolers with open flaps, so the IDists have little right to complain if people have a hard time telling who's who. Furthermore, the type of IDists commonly found in online debate fora, who, unlike the national movement, do not all share a common metaphysical viewpoint, will tend to contradict each other far more often. Thus a far left anarchist type will blame Darwin for contributing to capitalism, while the more common far right types will try to blame Darwin for Communism. Nevertheless, the consequentialist fallacy -- that Darwinism causes "bad things" and thus can't be true -- is high on the ID movement's list of propaganda techniques. It's extremely easy to cull such examples from "regular" creationists or online debaters, but just to be sporting, I've only provided references from leading members of the ID movement: On Liberalism: Nihilism and the End of Law by Philip Johnson. "The primary answer is that modernist thinking assumes the validity of Darwinian evolution, which explains the origin of humans and other living systems by an entirely mechanistic process that excludes in principle any role for a Creator. In the word of the neo-Darwinist authority George Gaylord Simpson, the meaning of "evolution" is that "man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind." For modernist intellectuals, belief in evolution in precisely this sense is equated with having a scientific outlook, which is to say, with being a modernist. The price for denying "science" is to be excluded from modernist discourse altogether. [...] Greenawalt defends a limited role for religious convictions in a jurisprudential culture whose ruling paradigm, called "liberalism," is roughly identical to what I have been calling modernism. Or Benjamin Wiker's article, Playing Games with Good & Evil: The failure of Darwinism to explain morality : "Allow me (since we are going to be playing games for rather high stakes) to lay my own cards on the table. I find this sort of talk absurd. Darwinian game theory is not new but simply a rehash of liberal political theory disguised as cutting-edge science. Give it a few vigorous scratches and we find Thomas Hobbes, the very father of modern political liberalism, back to haunt us from the 17th century. Hobbes was also the father of modern materialism, and his political liberalism was rooted in his mechanistic account of nature and human nature." On Racism : Not Just in Kansas Anymore by our friend Philip Johnson: "In short, Congress contemplated that biology classes should explore matters that Darwinists would prefer to ignore, such as criticisms of classic textbook examples like the faked drawings of embryonic similarities, and even the possible role of Darwinian concepts in encouraging the scientific racism embodied in eugenics programs." More Johnson: Domesticating Darwin . "This explanatory project carried some extremely racist implications, however. Because he was determined to establish human continuity with animals, Darwin frequently wrote of 'savages and lower races' as intermediate between animals and civilized people. Thus Degler observes that it was as much Darwin himself as any of the so-called "social Darwinists" who set the evolutionary approach to human behavior on a politically unacceptable course. 'Thanks to Darwin's acceptance of the idea of hierarchy among human societies,' he tells us, 'the spread and endurance of a racist form of social Darwinism owes more to Charles Darwin than to Herbert Spencer.' "Nor is a scientific grounding for racism the only unsavory heritage of nineteenth-century Darwinism. Degler also cites Darwin's theories about the intellectual inferiority of women, and describes how Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, employed Darwinian logic in favor of an ambitious eugenics program to improve the breed." (Note also the charge of sexism.) And then there is this truly deplorable letter by John Calvert (of the Kansas "ID Network") to the local paper in response to one written by KCFS (Kansas Citizens for Science) about teaching ID in public schools: What were we fighting against in Bastogne? We were fighting against a Nazi regime that used the philosophy of Naturalism to justify a eugenics program of terrifying proportions. Naturalism is the belief that all phenomena result only from the laws of chemistry and physics and that teleological or design explanations are not valid. Naturalism is not science. It is a belief system. (You can read a reply to Calvert's letter here .) On Capitalism (and other rightist thought): As reported by CBN news : [Philip] Johnson explained, "Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, they loved Darwinism because it said they were right to amass all the money in the world, you know. And if other people didn't have as much money, it was because they were inferiors." Richard Weikart, Discovery Institute Fellow, in The Roots of Hitler's Evil . "Second, since Hitler believed that nothing exists beyond nature, he tried to find his purpose in life in obeying the iron laws of nature. Darwinian biology was especially significant in this regard, as he tried to apply its lessons to politics and society. Darwinism especially forms of it often disparagingly called Social Darwinism today taught him that life is a constant struggle for existence leading to biological progress. Hitler embraced eugenics and racial extermination of allegedly inferior races as means to improve the human species and foster progress." H-Ideas archived post by Weikart: "It is, of course, true that many distorted Darwin's views, but Darwin's own work reflected laissez-faire economic views and propagated racial inequality (he claimed "savages" were inferior mentally and morally)." In fairness, from what little is available from him online, Weikart tends to dispel some common myths about Darwin's link to Social Darwinism, and has himself pointed out that people from completely opposite political viewpoints have tried to find support in Darwinism (much like the Bible, I suppose). Yet he puts more blame on Darwin than traditional scholars, such Robert Bannister, whose 1979 treatise on the subject Weikart calls "revisionist" . The next book he has planned, apparently with Discovery Institute backing, is to be titled, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Devaluing Human Life in Germany . Given the typical style of books published by the DI Fellows, it will be interesting to see how Weikart presents this one. Regardless of its content, you can bet the DI will use it as an ad hominem against evolutionary theory. Ironically, Weikart's published dissertation is titled Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein , which brings us to... Socialism (and other leftist thought): The most infamous of ID writings is known as the Wedge Document , which is the de facto manifesto of the ID movement, having been unintentionally leaked from the Discovery Institute: "Finally, materialism spawned a virulent strain of utopianism. Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth." Here is a


Legacy route: /cs/quixotic_message/ "The Quixotic Message", or "No Free Hunch" Steve Reuland (aka "theyeti") takes a humorous but well-referenced look at the inconsistencies of the Intelligent Design movement and its advocates. by theyeti * [contributed January 22nd, 2003] [Author's note: This collection of contradictions and absurdities was originally composed and posted to the antievolution.org discussion board. It was later decided to put it up on the web so that it can be exposed to a larger audience. This collection is meant to be lighthearted and funny, though it does highlight some serious issues in the ID debate. If this presents a problem for you, then go read something else. Furthermore, at the urging of several readers, I decided to make a references page to document these inconsistencies. It can be reached by clicking on any one of the numbered references below. If you feel that this would detract from the humor, then feel free to skip it. But as Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up ...] IDists... On Intelligent Design... ID is whatever we say it is, and we don't agree. Greater and greater numbers of scientists are joining the ID movement, which is why we keep referring to the same three year after year. [ 1 ] ID is not creationism, and can be perfectly compatible with evolution. This is why we're asking schools to teach the "evidence against evolution".[ 2 ] We're not creationists, except for those of us who are, but the rest of us won't confirm that we're not. But if you call us creationists, we'll complain to no end. [ 3 ] The correct stance on issues like an ancient Earth, the common ancestry of organisms, and natural selection can be worked out later, after we've convinced the public that they should be rejecting at least one of these. [ 4 ] ID is a widely accepted theory in the scientific community. Just last year, over 100 scientists signed a statement which does not support ID, but does say that they are "skeptical" of Darwinism. The opinions of tens of thousands of other scientists don't count, because they're all biased. [ 5 ] ID is a program for research into the science of design, nothing more. Part of our research plans are to produce coloring books for preschoolers, and to make ourselves more likeable at parties. [ 6 ] ID is a scientific theory for detecting purpose and teleology in nature. But don't ask us what that purpose is, because that's a religious question that's separate from ID. The Designer could be anything from God to a space alien. But the Raelians, who believe it was a space alien, are being illogical. On Darwinism... Darwinism can't explain the evolution of life in every single detail, therefore it's wrong. But don't ask IDists to explain these things, because that's not the kind of theory ID is. [ 7 ] Mainstream scientists dare not disagree with the monolithic block that is Darwinian orthodoxy. However, here are a number of mainstream scientists who disagree with each other on some issues, which means that they can't agree on anything. [ 8 ] Darwinists are driven by religious and ideological motivations. But since we've removed the picture of God and the phrase "Cultural Renewal" from our website, everyone knows this isn't true of us. [ 9 ] Absolutely everything wrong in society is caused by dogmatic Darwinian atheistic materialists. Including stereotyping, demonizing, and scapegoating. [ 10 ] Darwinists are responsible for both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. Both racism and liberalism. Both feminism and sexism. Both animal research and the animal rights movement. And Commie-Nazism. [ 11 ] On philosophy... Philosophers cannot agree on exactly where the line between science and non-science lies. Therefore, anything can be considered science if we say so. If a living system looks well designed, it's evidence for ID. If it looks poorly designed, that's just because we have no way of knowing what constitutes good and bad design. Afterall, we can't tell that it's bad design because we have no way of knowing what the Designer really intends. But we do know that ID will revolutionize culture, society, and law, according to what the Designer intends. [ 14 ] Methodological naturalism is an unfair rule that keeps us from considering supernatural explanations. But this would mean that detectives couldn't consider an intelligent agent in a person's death, because as we all know, murderers are supernatural. [ 15 ] A good scientific theory like ID should be vague and ambiguous, and refuse to propose any specific details about mechanism or history. Some unspecified being "designed" something, somewhere, at some point in time, somehow, is a perfectly good explanation. The argument from design is not a theological argument, because we aren't necessarily talking about God. But any rebuttal of the design argument is theological, because it requires us to say "God wouldn't do it this way", and this is not legitimate. [ 16 ] On the Evidence... Since the peppered moth case has been proven problematic, natural selection is disproven. The other 1,582 studies of natural selection in the wild, as well as the numerous laboratory studies, don't count. [ 17 ] And peppered moths don't rest on tree trunks. The actual datasets of moths found in natural positions in the wild, off but also on trunks, are irrelevant because researchers have captured thousands of moths over the years in their moth traps, and not once has a moth in a trap been found on a tree trunk. [ 18 ] Since moths don't rest on tree trunks but instead higher up in the branches, this means that birds can't get to them, because there is a magic barrier preventing birds from visiting tree branches. As demonstrated above, moths don't rest on tree trunks, which means that the photographs showing the contrasting conspicuousness of moths on tree trunks found in textbooks are FRAUDS, FRAUDS, FRAUDS. All the other staged animal photos in textbooks are however unobjectionable. The fact that more inclusive groupings, such as phyla, appeared before more specific groupings, such as genera, is evidence against evolution. Likewise, the fact that Europeans first appeared before Tony Blair is evidence against shared human ancestry. [ 19 ] Evolution can't produce novel information, because any change to an enzyme that increases substrate specificity reduces the reactivity of the enzyme with other compounds, which is a loss of information. Similarly, any change which increases the enzyme's generality is a loss of information because the enzyme has lost some specificity. [ 20 ] Life could not come about by natural means because it has Specified Complexity. Specified Complexity means something that cannot come about by natural means, therefore life must exhibit Specified Complexity. [ 21 ] It was very nice of our loving Designer to design an immune system to protect us from the deadly diseases He designed. The fundamental unity of living things means that there is only one Designer. The extraordinary variation among living things, including their tendency to kill each other, just means that our singular Designer is very creative and whimsical. [ 22 ] Lateral gene transfer, which is a powerful mechanism of evolution, is evidence against evolution. The fact that the laws of the universe are perfect for life is evidence for a Designer. The fact that the laws of the universe can't produce life is evidence for a Designer. [ 23 ] Irreducibly Complex structures require multiple parts. Therefore they can't evolve. If someone demonstrates how a structure that requires multiple parts could have evolved, that just means that it wasn't Irreducibly Complex. IC structures must be molecular systems. Except mousetraps. "Indirect" pathways are wildly unlikely and as hard to find as leprechauns, and are therefore only a "bare" possibility but not a realistic one and can be safely disregarded, despite the detailed attention paid to them by every major biologist from Darwin to Dawkins. [ 26 ] The ID hypothesis, on the other hand, bears no resemblance to leprechauns. [*] "theyeti" is a pseudonym of Steven Reuland. Comments, suggestions, additions, or threats of eternal damnation can be sent to reulansn@musc.edu.


Legacy route: /cs/spitzer_dot_review/ The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth? Brian Spitzer's review of Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial tells why it and the "Intelligent Design" movement are neither science—nor Christian. Why Phillip Johnson's Darwin on Trial and the "Intelligent Design" movement are neither science—nor Christian by Brian Spitzer DRAFT, Version 1.1 email author for comments and feedback [Contributed July 15, 2002; Last Modified: July 18, 2002] Introduction Darwin on Trial Lawyer games Just the facts, ma'am How science isn't done Did they really say that? Colin Patterson Steven Jay Gould Nature on the British Museum of Natural History Tricks of the trade Distortions and inventions The tautology argument The missing links which aren't, and other examples The log in your own eye Selective use of evidence The moving target Johnson's response Conclusions Additional examples Bait-and-switch Selective use of evidence Ad hominems and innuendo Misrepresentations of science Quote mining Begging the question "Straw man" arguments Conspiracy theory Introduction Lawyers are not the best-respected professionals in our society. Being a lawyer gives one a certain prestige because law requires expertise, like medicine or science, but we tend to put lawyers in the same shady box as salesmen and politicians. We don't trust them. And—perhaps—there are good reasons not to. Courtroom lawyers are called upon to represent the guilty as often as the innocent, and they are duty-bound to build the best case that they can. It follows logically that a courtroom lawyer will spend half of his or her time trying to convince a jury of the truth; the other 50% of the time, they are trying to persuade the jury to believe something which isn't the truth. This is not only permissible in the courtroom, it's necessary for our justice system to work. It's ironic that a system of justice requires what could be called 'injustice' from its participants, but that's what the law demands: lawyers playing parts which they may not even believe. Our law dictates that even the guilty should be represented in court, and most of us would agree that this curious tangle of competing fictions turns out to make our justice system more just. Because of this, it is entirely acceptable for a lawyer to play his or her false part in court, just as it is acceptable for an actor to play someone fictional on the stage. But when people assume false identities offstage, we call them impostors. I would argue that when a lawyer plays lawyer games outside the courtroom, it is just as morally wrong. Of course, you can't have a debate without having debating tactics. It's entirely fair, inside the courtroom or out, to showcase the facts that are most favorable to you. In the same way, it's perfectly fair to write a radio ad pointing out that your brand of widgets is cheaper and more reliable than your competitor's—if those favorable facts are actually true. But we're all aware of sleazy sales pitches where the tactics are used to obscure or distract attention from the relevant facts. I am not claiming that the line between these two is crystal-clear. But I am claiming that those who try to sway public opinion—especially if they are laying claim to the moral mantle of Christianity—are ethically bound to stick to the fair methods and leave the lawyer games in court. Back to top 1. Darwin on Trial Darwin on Trial , the book by Phillip Johnson which founded the neocreationist movement of "intelligent design", was written in 1991. I first encountered it in 1996. At the time I knew nothing at all about creationism. A friend-like me, a serious Christian as well as a scientist—suggested that I take a look at it, and I was curious enough to do so. There are certainly things about the book which I applauded, at the time. I've always been irritated by pop-science works which try to make statements about God (or the lack thereof) as though these statements are supported by scientific fact, and I was glad to see someone taking on Richard Dawkins. But even without much training (I had only a B.A. in biology), while reading through Johnson's book I began to notice some puzzling things. At first, they were quite small: a claim in one place which contradicted a different claim in another. A strange lapse of logic-perhaps excusable on account of the author's inexpertise? Statements which didn't fit with what I knew firsthand about science and scientists. I was naive. I assumed that a Christian writing to other Christians would provide a scrupulously fair and accurate account of the facts [1] . But the deeper I got into Darwin on Trial , the less naive I became. And the clearer it became that the driving force behind Johnson's book was neither fairness nor accuracy. A few years passed with this troubling thought at the back of my mind. I entered graduate school and started doing real science myself. And, the more I learned, the less I trusted Darwin on Trial . I finally challenged myself to put my mistrust to the test. Perhaps Johnson was merely confused about some things. What I should do, I told myself, is look at the sources he actually used in writing Darwin on Trial , and see what they say. Perhaps part of what Johnson says is accurate; perhaps his sources misled him in places. So I went to the campus library and started checking his claims. I was a lot less naive when I finished that task. I found that almost every scientific source cited by Johnson had been misused or distorted, in ways ranging from simple misinterpretations and innuendos to the construction of what appears to be outright fiction. The more closely I examined Darwin on Trial , the more inaccuracies I found, until it became almost impossible to catalogue all of the misleading statements in Johnson's work. This book-upon which the "intelligent design" movement is trying to hang a program of social reform and public education-is perhaps the ugliest and most deceptive book I have ever seen. It may seem irrelevant to critique a book over a decade since it was published. But Darwin on Trial was the work which founded the "intelligent design" movement, and Phillip Johnson is still regarded as the "godfather" of that entire school of thought. Later "intelligent design" creationists have adopted many of his exact arguments, as well as many of the questionable tactics and strategies used in Darwin on Trial . Perhaps most importantly, nobody in the "intelligent design" movement has, to my knowledge, ever criticized or disavowed any of the claims in Darwin on Trial . As I will show, this book is so full of questionable tactics that it would be hard for any informed reader not to notice any of the inaccuracy. All of the stars of the "intelligent design" movement, by their silent approval of these tactics, stand under a cloud of suspicion at the very least. Many Christians have welcomed the "intelligent design" creationists in the belief that they are fighting for God and truth. But, as the televangelism scandals of the 1980's should remind us, there are some more unsavory reasons for seeking celebrity in the Christian community: money, fame, applause, or power, especially political power. In short, there are a wealth of reasons why Christians need to be careful about trusting the stars of the "intelligent design" movement. And even well-intentioned debaters, if they let their desire to win the argument outstrip their respect for the facts, will turn out a product which is grossly misleading. Integrity is important. If—as I will show in this essay—the claims of "intelligent design" are more a product of debating tactics and tricks than they are a fair and honest presentation, Christians need to seriously consider whether they can support this movement in good faith. Back to top 2. Lawyer games To understand a lawyer's book, talk to another lawyer. Darwin on Trial has been reviewed by, among other people, a practicing lawyer by the name of Thomas C. Sager. In his review, Sager makes some very interesting points about the legal profession which he and Johnson share. He puts it succinctly: "The job of a lawyer is not to find the truth, (that is the job of the judge or jury) but to defend (or prosecute) the client.... The standard is to vigorously argue on behalf of one's client, rather than to pursue an abstract 'truth' or even 'justice'." Sager goes on to note: "In supporting the client, the lawyer may use any ethical means available. It is perfectly ethical for a lawyer to make ad hominem attacks on the opposing witnesses, to present incomplete information to a jury, to bring in irrelevant data, and of course to use a wide panoply of rhetorical skills and tricks. Science, obviously, has different goals. But the lawyer's orientation should be kept in mind when analyzing Johnson's book, because he is a lawyer, he has titled his subject a trial, he pursues it as a trial, and his job is to prosecute Darwinism. Lots of things are 'fair', from his point of view." [2] Johnson might protest that none of these tactics— ad hominem arguments, half-truths, and rhetorical sleight-of-hand-are technically lies . I am not interested in quibbling over fine shades of meaning in such definitions; in my view, deliberately misleading people does not become more acceptable because it goes under a different name. To a certain extent, it does not even matter whether these inaccuracies are deliberate or not. If Johnson is being intentionally misleading, that is an ethical and intellectual crime. If he is merely letting a desire to attack evolutionists override his concern for careful and accurate research, that indifference to fairness is also a crime, though a lesser one. In either case, Darwin on Trial cannot safely be trusted at face value as a guide to the facts. Back to top 3. Just the facts, ma'am Phillip Johnson, perhaps even by his own admission, is not terribly interested in facts. Indeed, the heart of the argument against evolution which is presented in Darwin on Trial —and echoed throughout the "intelligent design" movement up until the present day—is that science isn't actually about facts. According to Darwin on Trial , it's about "ideology." The accusation is that evolutionary scientists are all hopelessly biased, wedded to an atheistic ideology, and that the only reason they support evolutionary theory is that they need some way to explain the marvels of biology without bringing up God. This is a clever strategy, because a number of well-known and outspoken scientists are in fact atheists, and the Christian community in America has long had a vein of simmering resentment against a few individuals, like Richard Dawkins, who have preached atheist ideology while calling it science. Johnson taps into this vein skillfully, claiming that "Darwinism" is not only the view that natural forces created biology as we see it today, but also the insistence that God is a mere fable, uninvolved in evolution or—for that matter—anything else. The problem is that this argument isn't true. The truth is that biologists are overwhelmingly convinced that the theory of evolution really does explain the natural world accurately. That's why they support it, not some "ideology." Johnson and the other "intelligent design" creationists are aware that a large number of evolutionists maintain a deep faith in God. However, if the "intelligent design" creationists acknowledged them, they would have to admit that there are other reasons besides ideology to agree with the theory of evolution. Their strategy has been to deny that these people exist. A Gallup poll conducted in 1982 [3] found that only about 10% of Americans think that "Man evolved over millions of years from less developed forms. God had no part in this process." 90% of us, then, reject "Darwinism" as Johnson defines it, and the "intelligent design" creationists are fond of quoting this statistic. What they avoid mentioning is the other half of the poll, in which Gallup went not to the average American but to the average American scientist. About 40% of scientists declared their belief in both evolution and in an actively intervening God very much in control of the process. Either 40% of the scientists in America are fighting tooth and nail in defense of an ideology which they actually reject , or-based on the very poll which Johnson likes to cite-Johnson's argument about ideology is bunk. There is plenty of other evidence suggesting that Johnson should know this argument to be just that: bunk. Upon reading through the sources cited in Darwin on Trial , I found that the distinction between science and atheism was drawn quite clearly on a number of occasions It is made repeatedly by theologian Langdon Gilkey ( Creationism on Trial , pp.34-35, 97, 175-176) [4] and scientist Douglas Futuyma ( Science on Trial , p.217) [5] , both of whom are cited by Johnson. While Darwin on Trial points out that evolutionists like Dawkins, Julian Huxley, and Steven Jay Gould claim or imply that God is dead, it neglects to mention that all these figures have been criticized harshly and publicly by evolutionary biologists for muddying the line between scientific conclusions and metaphysical preferences. Johnson has a ready excuse: he claims that any time scientists say that they are not atheists, it is only to fool the public—or, as he puts it in one of his nastier moments, "for fear of jeopardizing the funding for scientific research" (p.127). However, Darwin on Trial gives no evidence to back up this accusation. That's because no such evidence exists. If Johnson wants to convince us that his accusations of atheism are not just conspiracy theory, he has had plenty of opportunity to do so. Several reviews of his book have criticized him for pretending that the personal views of a few inflammatory scientists are the consensus view of the scientific community, but Johnson has made no attempt to correct his claims or provide evidence for them. To my knowledge, neither have any of the other leaders of "intelligent design" creationism. There can be no denying it: stereotypes are rhetorically handy. But they aren't honest. The attempts by a few scientists to clothe their personal philosophies in the authority of science are certainly deplorable, and I believe that Christians are right to deplore them. But is the correct response to meet one mistruth with another? The way science works—methodological naturalism, to call it by its highbrow name [6] —is to try to explain the world in terms of ideas which can be empirically tested. The tests can be experimental, or one may posit an hypothesis and then look for those empirical signs which would follow logically if that hypothesis were true. Johnson's strategy is to claim that this is the same as atheism (see, for example, pp.116-117 of Darwin on Trial ). This argument does not stand up for long under scrutiny. We may not call it by such an elaborate name, but when a plumber tries to find out why your sink is clogged, or when police try to solve a crime, or when an engineer tries to design a bridge—in fact, whenever anyone tries to figure out pretty much anything about the physical world we live in—they are using methodological naturalism. You yourself use it every day. So do the "intelligent design" creationists. Scientists aren't precommitted to atheism. They're precommitted to a scientific method that can actually work. The only alternative to methodological naturalism—that is, to trying to understand the world in terms of ideas which can be empirically tested—is to try to understand the world in terms of ideas which can't be tested at all. See if you can unclog your sink that way. Johnson should, by now, be painfully aware that this argument does not hold up. He has been challenged clearly and publicly (for instance, by Robert Pennock) [7] to present a working alternative to methodological naturalism. Despite the fact that he has had over a decade to work out a method for what he calls "theistic science", Johnson has had nothing to say. Writes Pennock: "This is not surprising, for he has consistently refused to say anything positive about how a theistic science is supposed to work." If Johnson really feels that scientists have other options—if we really do have a choice other than methodological naturalism in science—he should give us a hint about what those options are. Until the intelligent design creationists explain to scientists what other methods they could be using, I find it very hard to blame the scientists for considering methodological naturalism to be a limited but indispensable tool. Back to top 4. How science isn't done Darwin on Trial misrepresents science just as it misrepresents scientists. Johnson seems to suggest that any event which has not been directly observed may be dismissed as "pure philosophy", but inferential evidence-as he should know from law-can prove a point as well as direct observation. Essentially all modern science, including particle physics, astrophysics, geology, microbiology, and chemistry, relies on inferential evidence. He claims that scientists disagree over "every detail" of evolutionary theory, but Douglas Futuyma, on p.171 of Science on Trial (again, a book cited in Darwin on Trial ) explains accurately and clearly what is and is not in dispute in the scientific community. On p.30 of Darwin on Trial , Johnson dismisses evolutionary mechanisms such as developmental constraints and pleiotropy—despite the fact that they are proven, genuine mechanisms that are not only compatible with Darwinian theory but are practically logical outgrowths of it. Darwin on Trial claims on pp.72-73 that, because developmental processes are different in different classes of tetrapods, the resulting traits cannot be homologues of one another; but this is only true if evolution adheres strictly to the principle of recapitulation [8] , a principle which was rejected decades ago by modern science. It suggests on p.80 that Archaeopteryx is just a mosaic along the lines of the platypus (it isn't); suggests on p.94 that the isolation of present-day taxa is at odds with the theory of evolution (this is incorrect); and on pp.95-96 claims that neutral theory is incompatible with Darwinian theory (a conclusion soundly rejected in at least one paper actually cited on the subject in Darwin on Trial ) [9] . After examining the sources which Johnson himself used in writing Darwin on Trial , I find it very difficult to understand how a writer with a serious concern for fairness could have reached the conclusions which are stated in Darwin on Trial . Serious misunderstandings of science pervade Darwin on Trial . For example, Johnson suggests that all scientists stick to the Darwinist party line out of self-interest—apparently unaware that scientific careers are made not by conformity but by coming up with radical new ideas. Any working scientist could have told him that. He does not understand basic scientific terminology (such as the word "tentative", for example, an error which he has not corrected even after being informed of it), or how the "self-correcting" nature of the scientific enterprise works. Many of these misunderstandings are so basic that Johnson seems to have done little or no research on the topic. In short, rather than do the work involved in understanding how science actually works, Johnson apparently made up a picture of modern biology which he finds useful for rhetorical purposes. Is this really the sort of work on which a true intellectual movement can be founded? Is this the sort of ethics with which the Christian community wants to ally itself? Back to top 5. Did they really say that? a. Colin Patterson Most damning of all is the way in which Darwin on Trial represents the views of other individuals. In several cases, Johnson cites the published opinions of scientists on various matters; it is therefore possible to set his book side-by-sid


Legacy route: /cs/syn_dembski_dodges/ The Design Revolution? How William Dembski Is Dodging Questions About Intelligent Design Mark Perakh's essay on the tactics used by William Dembski in responding to, or not responding to, criticism and critics. Read the full article PDF (off-site) .


Legacy route: /cs/syn_stormtroopers/ How Intelligent Design Advocates Turn the Sordid Lessons from Soviet and Nazi History Upside Down Wesley R. Elsberry and Mark Perakh examine the invidious comparisons made by "intelligent design" advocates where they liken evolutionary biologists to Soviet and Nazi leaders. In particular, the bizarre misuse by ID advocates of the example of Trofim D. Lysenko, pseudoscientist extraordinaire, is examined. Read the full article in PDF (off-site) .


TalkDesign Volunteers

Legacy route: /cs/td_volunteers/ TalkDesign Volunteers Mark Perakh, PhD Dr.Sci, Professor of Physics Emeritus California State University Fullerton perakh@bigfoot.com www.nctimes.net/~mark, www.talkreason.org Wesley R. Elsberry, Ph.D. Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University http://www.antievolution.org/ John S Wilkins, Ph.D. - jointly between History and Philosophy of Science, and Botany University of Melbourne Topic: Species concepts Jack Krebs Vice-President Kansas Citizens for Science www.sunflower.com/~jkrebs Liz Craig President, Kansas Citizens For Science www.kcfs.org Freelance writer lizard6849@yahoo.com Randy Bennett Associate Professor, Biology Juniata College Evolutionary Developmental Biology http://faculty.juniata.edu/bennett/ James H. Swan, PhD Professor Public Health Sciences Wichita State University jim.swan@wichita.edu Board Member, Kansas Citizens for Science Burt Humburg Resident in General Surgery University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN Matt Young Department of Physics Colorado School of Mines www.mines.edu/~mmyoung