Science and Intelligent Design: Part I
A colleague of mine wrote a paper on intelligent design and asked for my opinion of it. The paper treated the concept as the enemy of science, and I raised some objections. Accused then of holding a variety of irrational opinions that I don’t hold, I decided to try to articulate what I do think is true on the subject.
Some Christian groups want to substitute the teaching of intelligent design for the teaching of evolution in schools. Many scientists respond by protesting all reference to intelligent design in discussions of science because it is “not science.”
The Christian groups fear that philosophical materialism disguised as science threatens the biblical teaching of creation. Scientists fear that ascribing causation to an intelligent designer threatens the rational exploration of natural phenomena. Each group fears that the other will bring on a new dark age of ignorance.
Neither fear is groundless. But where scientists and traditional believers live in fear of one another, no one is well served with truth.
Intelligent Design Is Not a New Idea
The concept of intelligent design is not new. Almost every scientific discovery before the early twentieth century took place within the context of belief in a divine creator of the order of things. Science itself presupposes an order of things—it must, or the empirical method could not operate—though many contemporary scientists reject the idea of a creator of that order. Yet belief in a creator did not prevent Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Darwin, or Einstein from making their discoveries, for they all shared it.
It is true that particular scientific discoveries and kinds of research have been obstructed by religious institutions at various times, but it was not the concept of a creating intelligence that got in the way of scientific discovery. Likewise, some contemporary scientists maintain an ongoing attack on religion, but it is not science itself that threatens religious faith.
Intelligent Design Is Not Unscientific; Materialism Is Not Science
Materialism, the idea that everything that exists—whether particle or force—has a material (as opposed to non-material or spiritual) cause, is a theory. That the origin of the physical universe lies in material reality cannot be proven or disproven empirically. Scientists who believe in materialism with complete conviction do so out of faith.
Intelligent design is also a theory. Unlike materialism, which offers no original cause for the existence of physical things and forces, intelligent design posits an original divine cause for all that is. But like the theory of materialism, the theory of intelligent design cannot be either proven or disproven empirically.
Rational arguments for both theories have been debated by the greatest minds of Western thought: The Bible, Plato, and Aristotle began the conversation, followed by Epicurus, Lucretius, Hobbes, Hume, Freud, and others on the materialism side and Augustine, Maimonides, Aquinas, Locke, Newton, Kant, C.S. Lewis, and others on the design side. The arguments are about postulates—givens based on insight and faith—not about propositions susceptible of proof.
None of the claims of evolutionary theory constitutes proof of either materialism or intelligent design. Whatever material causes for evolution may be identified, there may or may not be behind them an intelligent designer. And however active the intelligent designer may be, there may or may not always be physical phenomena at work in the functioning of the design that we have not comprehended.
Confused scientists claim that the theory of intelligent design threatens the scientific method. It does not. What it threatens is the theory that material causes account for everything, which, being a form of faith, has no more scientific authority than belief in intelligent design or in God. Literalist interpreters of the Bible claim that science threatens belief in God. It does not. It is materialism, not scientific knowledge, that from the religious viewpoint is the idol of false worship.
In other words, neither materialism nor intelligent design should be equated with science. And since either theory—or a combination of both—might be true, neither should be banished from discussions of the foundations of science. If intelligent design is forbidden from the classroom, so must materialism be forbidden. If a science teacher believes in materialism, he or she ought to make clear that the credentials of intelligent design are just as valid.
The Limits of Materialism
Believing, with Lucretius, that everything has a basis in matter or natural forces and that there is no such thing as spirit, materialists will say that it is only because of lack of sufficient experimental evidence that such things as love, hate, and free will cannot be materially explained. Ideally, given enough time and permitted the right experiments, science will “explain” every mystery in physical terms.
There are two problems with this assertion: one logical, one moral.
The Logical Limit of Materialism
Let’s say I toss a rose up into the hand of my beloved on a balcony above. Or let’s say I hurl a brick from a balcony onto the head of my enemy below. Measuring weights, trajectories, air resistance, etc., scientists can describe what is physically happening with great—actually awe-inspiring—accuracy. If they add in physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and relativity, they can know even more about what is going on in either of these gestures, whether the chosen context is the atom or the human body or the earth or the galaxy or space-time.
But the moment that, based on these observations, the council of scientists assert that they have “explained” the tossed rose or the hurled brick, they have stepped beyond their realm. Even if they attach electrodes to the brains of my beloved, my enemy, and me, they cannot possibly know the whole cause of the phenomena, for some of that cause lies in my unmeasurable mind and will, and beyond too—for even I cannot know everything that has gone into my own motivation.
Since they take place in the context of mystery (the origin of things, the ultimate limits of human comprehension), to assume that all the physical science in the world brought to bear upon these gestures will completely explain them is to pretend to a knowledge that science does not and cannot have.
For data cannot by itself explain anything. All scientific evidence is significant only within an underlying system or organizing theory that gives it meaning. To “explain” means to translate from one system of description to another, to render one kind of evidence significant in terms of another—muscularity in terms of weight lifted, quantity of knowledge in terms of letter grades, the flight of my rose or brick in terms of velocity.
It would be foolish to pretend that by having interpreted the movement of my hand and the motion of the rose or brick and the electrochemical activity of my brain in physical terms we have entirely explained the phenomenon. Just as it would be foolish to pretend that the rose landed in my beloved’s hand or the brick on my enemy’s head only because I willed it to do so, without reference to gravity, weight, air, my nervous and muscular systems, and so on.
That we are empirically aware of non-material realities—love and hate and free will—does not mean that the physical world is not governed by physical laws whose operation may be better and better understood. At the same time, that science “works” in explaining physical phenomena does not mean that there is nothing but the material world at work in the material world. Just as the material is real, and knowledge of it matters, so the spiritual—the realm of belief—is real, and knowledge of it matters.
Beliefs therefore are not the enemy of science. In fact, science itself is based on spiritual beliefs. Here are some of them:
· Pursuit of truth is good; pursuit of truth about the material world and its operations is good;
· Reality is orderly and consistent; the physical laws that govern the universe are orderly and consistent; (I am told that even chaos scientists cannot find empirical evidence of chaos);
· Our sensory experience corresponds to reality; the more that empirical evidence is consistent, orderly, and reproducible, the more it may be trusted;
· Helping our fellow man is good; discovering cures for human disease and easing human suffering are good.
Take away these beliefs, and the reasons for scientific study—to know; to help—disappear. Yet none of them can be proven by scientific experiment. Our trust in their truth is simply fundamental to our being human. They are self-evident.
Thus, while denial or falsification of data based on prejudice is the enemy of science, belief is not. Prejudice may corrupt conclusions based on any belief, materialism as well as intelligent design.
When a scientist tells me that a rainbow is the refraction of light by water droplets, I believe it on good authority. When the same scientist tells me that a rainbow is only the refraction of light through water droplets and therefore not a sign of God’s promise to refrain from flooding the world, the scientist is overstepping the bounds of science, just as it would be misuse of the Bible to claim that the refraction theory is false because Genesis calls the rainbow a sign of God’s covenant.
To assert that there can be no influence of a non-material will on evolution or the formation of the universe is to claim what science, given the terms of its language, cannot know. Similarly, to assert that God could not, if he willed, use evolution as his mode of creation is to claim that the Bible is the author of God and not God the author of the Bible.
The Moral Limit of Materialism
The moral problem with the materialist dogma is that, carried to its logical conclusion, in the name of scientific knowledge it would destroy every other human value, including, eventually, the love of truth, upon which its own validity rests.
Let’s say that materialist science can learn a great deal about the mind by measuring exactly what happens physiologically when a bolt is driven into the head of a monkey, causing severe agony. Can materialist science also measure what is happening in the soul of the scientist who is doing the experiment? Would it if it could? Allowed to continue in the name of gaining knowledge, such experimentation would have two inevitable results:
First, the scientist would find that the mind is nothing more than the brain and its physical functions. This is inevitable because he can admit into his body of knowledge only that kind of information which he set out to look for in the first place. Non-material information is excluded from the start by his underlying materialist assumption.
Second, he will have broken the universal moral law against unnecessary cruelty and put his own soul, if he has one, into jeopardy while abolishing all grounds for thinking that he might have done so.
Such a scientist has departed from the human community and betrayed the very values that make human life, including the study of science, meaningful.
As I pointed out above, science is not responsible for our knowing that love of truth, on which science is based, is a value. That value is an axiom, a fundamental assumption, a self-evident truth, an absolute given—like justice, like kindness. If the one is a value, so are the others. If the others have no absolute authority, neither has that. (For the best discussion of this, see C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man).
Because of this equality in fundamental authority, just as people can go astray believing scientific nonsense in the name of religion, so people can go astray believing moral and spiritual nonsense in the name of science.
Practically speaking, science can tell us how dogs behave when we tear their legs off, as Descartes (whose mind-body split laid the foundations for modern materialism) had no objection to doing. But it can’t tell us whether we ought to do so. Questions of significance and rightness can be answered only by philosophy or religion, not by science. When scientific materialism threatens to decide such questions by ignoring them, the human community must either correct it or risk being destroyed by it.
Truth Shall Spring out of the Earth and Righteousness Shall Look Down from Heaven
Even for those who are as certain of the evolution of species as they are of heliocentrism or the germ theory of disease, the theory of evolution does not and cannot explain its own existence. Science can show that molecules and organisms behave thus and thus, but it cannot explain why they do, or why they exist to do so. Whether or not God’s hand is in any or every molecular event of the universe can never be known by science.
Those who fear that the scientific investigation of evolution threatens biblical truth forget that no amount of human knowledge can reduce the great mystery of creation or the Bible’s importance in our relating to it. And those who attack every discussion of intelligent design as a threat to the scientific enterprise are materialist proselytizers practicing exactly the kind of dogmatism they disapprove of in popes who silence Galileos.
True faith is not threatened by knowledge of the physical world, nor honest science by the recognition of its foundation on faith. Being fully human means acknowledging the authority of both kinds of knowing.
It remains an open question whether in the long run science without religion does more damage than religion without science. But our ideal must remain the right practice of both material and spiritual knowledge and discernment of their right relations. To run from either in blind fear is to run toward the darkness.
Some Christian groups want to substitute the teaching of intelligent design for the teaching of evolution in schools. Many scientists respond by protesting all reference to intelligent design in discussions of science because it is “not science.”
The Christian groups fear that philosophical materialism disguised as science threatens the biblical teaching of creation. Scientists fear that ascribing causation to an intelligent designer threatens the rational exploration of natural phenomena. Each group fears that the other will bring on a new dark age of ignorance.
Neither fear is groundless. But where scientists and traditional believers live in fear of one another, no one is well served with truth.
Intelligent Design Is Not a New Idea
The concept of intelligent design is not new. Almost every scientific discovery before the early twentieth century took place within the context of belief in a divine creator of the order of things. Science itself presupposes an order of things—it must, or the empirical method could not operate—though many contemporary scientists reject the idea of a creator of that order. Yet belief in a creator did not prevent Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Darwin, or Einstein from making their discoveries, for they all shared it.
It is true that particular scientific discoveries and kinds of research have been obstructed by religious institutions at various times, but it was not the concept of a creating intelligence that got in the way of scientific discovery. Likewise, some contemporary scientists maintain an ongoing attack on religion, but it is not science itself that threatens religious faith.
Intelligent Design Is Not Unscientific; Materialism Is Not Science
Materialism, the idea that everything that exists—whether particle or force—has a material (as opposed to non-material or spiritual) cause, is a theory. That the origin of the physical universe lies in material reality cannot be proven or disproven empirically. Scientists who believe in materialism with complete conviction do so out of faith.
Intelligent design is also a theory. Unlike materialism, which offers no original cause for the existence of physical things and forces, intelligent design posits an original divine cause for all that is. But like the theory of materialism, the theory of intelligent design cannot be either proven or disproven empirically.
Rational arguments for both theories have been debated by the greatest minds of Western thought: The Bible, Plato, and Aristotle began the conversation, followed by Epicurus, Lucretius, Hobbes, Hume, Freud, and others on the materialism side and Augustine, Maimonides, Aquinas, Locke, Newton, Kant, C.S. Lewis, and others on the design side. The arguments are about postulates—givens based on insight and faith—not about propositions susceptible of proof.
None of the claims of evolutionary theory constitutes proof of either materialism or intelligent design. Whatever material causes for evolution may be identified, there may or may not be behind them an intelligent designer. And however active the intelligent designer may be, there may or may not always be physical phenomena at work in the functioning of the design that we have not comprehended.
Confused scientists claim that the theory of intelligent design threatens the scientific method. It does not. What it threatens is the theory that material causes account for everything, which, being a form of faith, has no more scientific authority than belief in intelligent design or in God. Literalist interpreters of the Bible claim that science threatens belief in God. It does not. It is materialism, not scientific knowledge, that from the religious viewpoint is the idol of false worship.
In other words, neither materialism nor intelligent design should be equated with science. And since either theory—or a combination of both—might be true, neither should be banished from discussions of the foundations of science. If intelligent design is forbidden from the classroom, so must materialism be forbidden. If a science teacher believes in materialism, he or she ought to make clear that the credentials of intelligent design are just as valid.
The Limits of Materialism
Believing, with Lucretius, that everything has a basis in matter or natural forces and that there is no such thing as spirit, materialists will say that it is only because of lack of sufficient experimental evidence that such things as love, hate, and free will cannot be materially explained. Ideally, given enough time and permitted the right experiments, science will “explain” every mystery in physical terms.
There are two problems with this assertion: one logical, one moral.
The Logical Limit of Materialism
Let’s say I toss a rose up into the hand of my beloved on a balcony above. Or let’s say I hurl a brick from a balcony onto the head of my enemy below. Measuring weights, trajectories, air resistance, etc., scientists can describe what is physically happening with great—actually awe-inspiring—accuracy. If they add in physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and relativity, they can know even more about what is going on in either of these gestures, whether the chosen context is the atom or the human body or the earth or the galaxy or space-time.
But the moment that, based on these observations, the council of scientists assert that they have “explained” the tossed rose or the hurled brick, they have stepped beyond their realm. Even if they attach electrodes to the brains of my beloved, my enemy, and me, they cannot possibly know the whole cause of the phenomena, for some of that cause lies in my unmeasurable mind and will, and beyond too—for even I cannot know everything that has gone into my own motivation.
Since they take place in the context of mystery (the origin of things, the ultimate limits of human comprehension), to assume that all the physical science in the world brought to bear upon these gestures will completely explain them is to pretend to a knowledge that science does not and cannot have.
For data cannot by itself explain anything. All scientific evidence is significant only within an underlying system or organizing theory that gives it meaning. To “explain” means to translate from one system of description to another, to render one kind of evidence significant in terms of another—muscularity in terms of weight lifted, quantity of knowledge in terms of letter grades, the flight of my rose or brick in terms of velocity.
It would be foolish to pretend that by having interpreted the movement of my hand and the motion of the rose or brick and the electrochemical activity of my brain in physical terms we have entirely explained the phenomenon. Just as it would be foolish to pretend that the rose landed in my beloved’s hand or the brick on my enemy’s head only because I willed it to do so, without reference to gravity, weight, air, my nervous and muscular systems, and so on.
That we are empirically aware of non-material realities—love and hate and free will—does not mean that the physical world is not governed by physical laws whose operation may be better and better understood. At the same time, that science “works” in explaining physical phenomena does not mean that there is nothing but the material world at work in the material world. Just as the material is real, and knowledge of it matters, so the spiritual—the realm of belief—is real, and knowledge of it matters.
Beliefs therefore are not the enemy of science. In fact, science itself is based on spiritual beliefs. Here are some of them:
· Pursuit of truth is good; pursuit of truth about the material world and its operations is good;
· Reality is orderly and consistent; the physical laws that govern the universe are orderly and consistent; (I am told that even chaos scientists cannot find empirical evidence of chaos);
· Our sensory experience corresponds to reality; the more that empirical evidence is consistent, orderly, and reproducible, the more it may be trusted;
· Helping our fellow man is good; discovering cures for human disease and easing human suffering are good.
Take away these beliefs, and the reasons for scientific study—to know; to help—disappear. Yet none of them can be proven by scientific experiment. Our trust in their truth is simply fundamental to our being human. They are self-evident.
Thus, while denial or falsification of data based on prejudice is the enemy of science, belief is not. Prejudice may corrupt conclusions based on any belief, materialism as well as intelligent design.
When a scientist tells me that a rainbow is the refraction of light by water droplets, I believe it on good authority. When the same scientist tells me that a rainbow is only the refraction of light through water droplets and therefore not a sign of God’s promise to refrain from flooding the world, the scientist is overstepping the bounds of science, just as it would be misuse of the Bible to claim that the refraction theory is false because Genesis calls the rainbow a sign of God’s covenant.
To assert that there can be no influence of a non-material will on evolution or the formation of the universe is to claim what science, given the terms of its language, cannot know. Similarly, to assert that God could not, if he willed, use evolution as his mode of creation is to claim that the Bible is the author of God and not God the author of the Bible.
The Moral Limit of Materialism
The moral problem with the materialist dogma is that, carried to its logical conclusion, in the name of scientific knowledge it would destroy every other human value, including, eventually, the love of truth, upon which its own validity rests.
Let’s say that materialist science can learn a great deal about the mind by measuring exactly what happens physiologically when a bolt is driven into the head of a monkey, causing severe agony. Can materialist science also measure what is happening in the soul of the scientist who is doing the experiment? Would it if it could? Allowed to continue in the name of gaining knowledge, such experimentation would have two inevitable results:
First, the scientist would find that the mind is nothing more than the brain and its physical functions. This is inevitable because he can admit into his body of knowledge only that kind of information which he set out to look for in the first place. Non-material information is excluded from the start by his underlying materialist assumption.
Second, he will have broken the universal moral law against unnecessary cruelty and put his own soul, if he has one, into jeopardy while abolishing all grounds for thinking that he might have done so.
Such a scientist has departed from the human community and betrayed the very values that make human life, including the study of science, meaningful.
As I pointed out above, science is not responsible for our knowing that love of truth, on which science is based, is a value. That value is an axiom, a fundamental assumption, a self-evident truth, an absolute given—like justice, like kindness. If the one is a value, so are the others. If the others have no absolute authority, neither has that. (For the best discussion of this, see C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man).
Because of this equality in fundamental authority, just as people can go astray believing scientific nonsense in the name of religion, so people can go astray believing moral and spiritual nonsense in the name of science.
Practically speaking, science can tell us how dogs behave when we tear their legs off, as Descartes (whose mind-body split laid the foundations for modern materialism) had no objection to doing. But it can’t tell us whether we ought to do so. Questions of significance and rightness can be answered only by philosophy or religion, not by science. When scientific materialism threatens to decide such questions by ignoring them, the human community must either correct it or risk being destroyed by it.
Truth Shall Spring out of the Earth and Righteousness Shall Look Down from Heaven
Even for those who are as certain of the evolution of species as they are of heliocentrism or the germ theory of disease, the theory of evolution does not and cannot explain its own existence. Science can show that molecules and organisms behave thus and thus, but it cannot explain why they do, or why they exist to do so. Whether or not God’s hand is in any or every molecular event of the universe can never be known by science.
Those who fear that the scientific investigation of evolution threatens biblical truth forget that no amount of human knowledge can reduce the great mystery of creation or the Bible’s importance in our relating to it. And those who attack every discussion of intelligent design as a threat to the scientific enterprise are materialist proselytizers practicing exactly the kind of dogmatism they disapprove of in popes who silence Galileos.
True faith is not threatened by knowledge of the physical world, nor honest science by the recognition of its foundation on faith. Being fully human means acknowledging the authority of both kinds of knowing.
It remains an open question whether in the long run science without religion does more damage than religion without science. But our ideal must remain the right practice of both material and spiritual knowledge and discernment of their right relations. To run from either in blind fear is to run toward the darkness.
posted by G.Rap | 9:17 AM
6 Comments:
I bought this book a couple years ago, skimmed it, put it away, and then I subconsciously got it out after I read the above deal on intelligent design versus materialism:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1579550088/qid=1120888571/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/104-9931054-9932733?v=glance&s=books
It's Wolfram's A New Kind of Science. It's really long, but one point is simple: for very complicated evolution to occur, the design didn't need to be that intelligent. The book has lots of pictures and asides regarding evolution, theology, embrology, economics, et cetera--and it's written for laymen (not that you are one).
Erwin Schrodinger's "What is Life?" was much more eloquent, but the above work is pretty darn interesting.
Of course no amount of science can explain ethics, but what I can't figure out is why such consensus seems to exist about most laws throughout time. Stealing bad. Adultery bad. Violence bad. Usually. Especially if you get caught.
If celluar automata, intelligent design, or evolution should teach humans anything, it ought to be that humankind as it exists today is a rare event in the space of the universe or in time (even if the earth is only 5,000 years old, you whackadoos). Thus, whether you divine meaning from a believed source or merely from the context of other people in your lives, I would stipulated that this sort of navel gazing is important only insofar as to how important it lends one a sense of urgency for his or her life. It's nice to get used to living in a complicated world.
This is such a profound, yet simple point:
"To assert that there can be no influence of a non-material will on evolution or the formation of the universe is to claim what science, given the terms of its language, cannot know. Similarly, to assert that God could not, if he willed, use evolution as his mode of creation is to claim that the Bible is the author of God and not God the author of the Bible."
I especially appreciate your last comment about the Bible not being the author of God. It is my view, as devout Christian, that Christian fundamentalists are worshipping a false god: the Bible, as opposed to worshipping God as Christ. But that is neither here nor there.
I haven't studied the theory of Intelligent Design too much, although I believe God created the world, and used evolution as a tool to create the diversity of life we have today. I think that is part of ID, no? But the problem so many science people (and I am one of those, too!) have with ID is NOT that they can't handle a non-material source of creation or purpose for creation. It is that the theory of natural selection itself states that the random situation in which a population of living things exists is responsible for shaping the change in the gene pool. A bunch of finches find themselves on an island where the nuts are difficult to open. Those birds with stronger, thicker beaks survive and reproduce better, etc. So the "random situation" in that case was the type of food available. Science people don't want to teach intelligent design--not because it is "anti-evolution," but because it ignores the reality of natural selection (the "strategy," if you will, of evolution).
Anyway, isn't it possible that a divine entity made the environment just so--so that that that group of finches would arrive and only the big beaked would survive? Isn't it possible that a dinve entity created the seemingly random situations that drove the natural selection of countless populations and species over the millenia? Scientists must agree that this is a possibility, but do not need to teach it in the classroom, as science as a field could never study the claim.
You argue that science also can't argue the claim of materialism, so they shouldn't teach that. Well, I hope science teachers are not teaching that stuff has always been here and that is that! You are right that materialism is a belief, and all science teachers should acknowledge that we don't know how all that matter got into a big blob before the Big Bang. If students ask where it all came from (and they do), science, history, religion, and English teachers have the responsibility to answer, "What do you think?" and perhaps allow that student to go find out what the theories are--and what her own theories are. It has been my frustration with other science teachers that they do not want to engage in this type of discussion or research since "it is outside the realm of science." That is like saying the middle school teachers shouldn't teach and reinforce good citizenship, since "it is outside the realm of academics." That attitude is very short-sighted and the kids end up losing when we limit their wonderings to what the text book says.
Sorry this got so long! When both babies are napping at the same time, I find myself overeager to use the time to think of something intellectual. Thanks for the blog. Can't wait for part 2!
Sarah
Sarah’s comments are welcome. She writes,
“[T]he theory of natural selection itself states that the random situation in which a population of living things exists is responsible for shaping the change in the gene pool.”
It is precisely the degree of this “responsibility” that is at issue. The theory of natural selection asserts that random mutation + environmental conditions + huge amounts of time = the biological world we see. But quite apart from the lack of decisive evidence for the theory when it comes to certain problems (the black box problem raised by Behe, the Cambrian explosion, etc.), the point I want to make is that randomness itself is not provable. That randomness even exists is a belief. In the example given, why should this finch have a thicker beak than that? Accident or Intention? (as Thornton Wilder puts it in The Bridge of San Luis Rey). The answer one gives, I repeat, is not deducible through scientific investigation but depends on faith.
Evolutionists may appeal here to Occam’s razor: i.e., let the simplest explanation, the one depending on known as opposed to unknown factors, be adopted. But the razor cuts both ways. Those who already believe that matter without spirit is the simpler, better known thing, holding that we have much experience of the physical world and little of the spiritual, will opt for matter, time, and chance to account for the complex world. But those who already believe that a maker is the simpler, better known thing, holding that we have much experience of order arising from the work of makers and little of matter complicating itself without rational intervention, will opt for intelligent design to account for the world. So we are back where we started: whether the material or the spiritual is the foundation of reality is a question of belief.
Sarah is quite right that science teachers, like English and religion and history teachers, ought to welcome and embrace living questions from living students, who are, after all, whole beings not themselves subdivided, like our educational institutions, into academic departments, useful though the latter may be.
All our knowledge unfolds in the context of mystery. Why not admit it? I suspect that the teachers of evolution who, unlike Sarah, resist this recognition in their classrooms do so out of fear, the very same fear exhibited by the so-called creationists. Both hide from mystery out of the fear of uncertainty, preferring control to awe. In both that fear leads to fundamentalist dogmatism, the enemy of education.
Hi Gideon! Long time no talk. I hope all is well.
I have a few comments on your blog entry.
You write: "Materialism, the idea that everything that exists—whether particle or force—has a material (as opposed to non-material or spiritual) cause, is a theory."
In a scientific context (as opposed to more common usage), materialism is not a theory. It cannot be tested: no experimental result can falsify it. It is therefore unscientific, and should not be taught in science classes. The same holds true for "Intelligent Design": it's not a theory, either.
You correctly state that, like materialism, intelligent design can be neither proven nor disproven. That disqualifies it as a scientific theory.
I believe that more attention should be given in high school science classes to the issue of what is and what isn't science. Philosophic materialism and intelligent design are examples of what isn't science -- and that's the only reason they should be mentioned in science classes.
High school science textbooks generally summarize and report what's in the primary literature: peer-reviewed articles published in science journals. You won't find God in those articles, so you won't find Him in high school science texts, either -- or, at least, you shouldn't -- intelligent design-proponents notwithstanding.
Evolutionary biology can be said to be atheistic in the same sense that the rules of baseball are atheistic: they do not mention God. This is not because God is assumed not to exist. It's just because whether He exists or not is irrelevant to the science of evolutionary biology, just like it's irrelevant to the rules of baseball.
So intelligent design should be kept out of the science classroom, except perhaps as an example of unscientific thought.
Philosophic materialism should also be kept out of the science classroom, but I am unaware of any movement that aims to have it included. The failure to mention God should not be taken as an assertion of His non-existence -- in biology, baseball, or even literature.
Maurile’s objection to my use of the word “theory” would be fine if I had used the word in a “scientific context,” or if I had used the phrase “scientific theory.” Webster’s Collegiate defines the word in various ways, including “a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena,” “a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation,” and “an unproved assumption.” My use of the term is defensible in any of these definitions.
High school classrooms, as Sarah complained, are too often rigidly limited to disciplinary questions and purged of living ones. The only reason not to invite at least some discussion of Intelligent Design and Materialism in the context of a discussion of what is and isn't true and how human beings know things (as well as what is and isn't science) is the fear of atheists that religion might be taken seriously. The study of science raises questions in the minds of students that a good teacher ought not to fear addressing. And even the rules of baseball raise questions about the meaning of human sport, the nature of law, and the imitation of the universal order that is a good game with shared rules that work. (Why does baseball work when a hundred somewhat different games with different rules would not? I don't say one needs to address these questions in teaching baseball. But if the question should come up in the mind of a student, what is the fear in addressing it?)
As for whether there is any movement that aims to have philosophic materialism included in the science classroom, I refer you to the following article: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/812ovgib.a
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Hi Gideon,
I was not objecting your use of the word "theory" for the sake of finding fault with your writing. Your usage was perfectly acceptable in the non-scientific context in which you meant it. Rather, I was objecting to the idea (not stated by you) that Intelligent Design is a scientific theory and should be taught as such in highschool biology classes. It is not a scientific theory.
You and Sarah both raise a good point, however, about classroom instruction often being too rigidly limited. It makes sense at first blush to say that a biology course should teach biology and only biology, without regard to whatever philosophical issues may be tangentially related to it. But in the hands of a competent teacher, those tangential philosophical issues may be profitably raised and discussed -- including the issue of Intelligent Design. The competent teacher would take care, though, to impress upon her students the difference between a scientific theory, on the one hand, and mere conjecture or philosophical speculation on the other.
Thanks for the link to the Isaac Constantine article. I enjoyed reading it, and agree with much of it. It cites no examples, however, of a movement that aims to have philosophic materialism included in the science classroom. It quotes Allen Orr (probably out of context, judging by how these things usually go -- but no matter) making assertions more philosophical than scientific, but provides no evidence that Orr seeks to have his philosophical views included in highschool science textbooks. Scientists are entitled to express philosophical opinions just like philosphers are -- so long as they admit to being off-duty when they do so. (If they are careless about this, they should be criticized.)
By the way, here is a link to Orr's New Yorker article that Constantine was responding to:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050530fa_fact
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