Thinking Christian

Book Review

In his book Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, Francisco Ayala suggests that evolution supplies the answer to a serious theological conundrum. I alluded to this in my first post on this book: Things that Seem Wrong About the World:

When I was studying theology in Salamanca Darwin was a much-welcomed friend. The theory of evolution provided the solution to the remaining component of the problem of evil. As floods and drought were a necessary consequence of the fabric of the physical world, predators and parasites, dysfunctions and diseases were a consequence of the evolution of life. They were not a result of deficient or malevolent design: the features of organisms were not designed by the creator.

Related to that is evolution’s explanation for imperfections in nature (pages 22-23):

If functional design manifests an Intelligent Designer, why should not deficiencies indicate that the Designer is less than omniscient, or less than omnipotent? … We know that some deficiencies are not just imperfections, but are outright dysfunctional, jeopardizing the very function the organ or part is supposed to serve…. Even if the dysfunctions, cruelties, and sadism of the living world were rare, which they are not, they would still need to be attributed to the Designer if the Designer had designed the living world.

He returns to a similar theme later in the book (p. 154):

One difficulty with attributing the design of organisms to the Creator is that imperfections and defects pervade the living world…. Defective design would seem incompatible with an omnipotent Intelligent Designer.

But does evolution really solve that problem for Christianity? Phillip Johnson has a timely word on this topic in the current issue of Touchstone. He says,

Another motive for adhering to theological naturalism is a desire to protect God from having to take responsibility for all the nasty things in nature. It is all very well to give God credit for designing the beautiful things, but what God would have designed the mosquito? I fail to see, however, how theological naturalism protects God from responsibility for everything that exists. Granted that God created by natural laws, should he not have designed the laws of nature so that mosquitoes would not come into existence?

Ayala’s solution is no solution. He posits something like a deistic God in relation to natural history (I don’t know where he stands on God’s intervention in salvation history). This God kicked off a world and let it run. Some of it ended up looking nice and fine, but much of it’s a mess; an especially, painfully obvious mess in this month of a devastating cyclone and a horrible earthquake in Asia. And not just that; there have been terrifically damaging tornadoes and floods near my own home, and even worse to the west. I was near enough to see the smoke of a major brush fire earlier today, near Orlando where I’m visiting for a few days; it’s one of many threatening homes in Florida this week.

God cannot get off the hook for these things the way Ayala says he can. He would have us believe God has just let things be this way. Maybe God couldn’t do any better–he doesn’t know how to fix the mess he has made. Or maybe God feels that getting his hands dirty by touching his creation just isn’t very nice. Or is God is letting natural law and chance run their course, because he’s just dying with curiosity to see how it will come out in the end? Which is it? What kind of God does Ayala suppose this Creator is? Which of those options absolves God of responsibility for evil?

There is a solution to the problem of evil, but this is not it. We’ve discussed it at length before (this Google search may be the best guide to those links I can provide you, or you can explore further here). If I were to try to outline it in brief, I would run the risk of doing as much violence to the real answer as Ayala has done with his facile resorting to an evolutionary solution. (Any easy, brief answer to the problem of evil is guaranteed to be wrong.) I own up to having a purely critical purpose in mind for this post: to show that if evolution is supposed to be a gift to religion, in the sense of solving a certain theological problem, it fails to do so. We have better solutions than that, and thank God that we do.

Ayala wants to bridge a perceived gulf between science and religion. That’s a noble goal, and it certainly ought to be achievable, provided that we interpret both revelation and nature accurately; for if Christianity is true then its truths must be consonant with truths of nature, and vice versa. The bridge Ayala has tried to build here, however, won’t bear the required weight.

Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, by Francisco Ayala. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2007. 256 pages. Amazon price $24.95.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Origins and Science & Thinking Christianly | 13 Comments »

Book Review

Francisco Ayala wants us to understand and appreciate what he considers to be Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion. As the author of the book by that name, he certainly has a claim to knowledge on the issues: having trained as a seminarian in Spain, he is now an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine.* He chaired the committee that produced the booklet, Science, Evolution, and Creationism for the National Academy of Sciences/Institutes of Health.

Why a biologist would consider Darwin a gift to science is not hard to imagine. Not assuming his readers understand evolutionary theory, though, Ayala devotes several chapters to an overview and argument for evolution and against Intelligent Design theory. As an introduction to the topic from a mainstream science perspective, this book would be hard to beat. Ayala knows his topic, and he writes well.

Things That Seem Wrong About the World
But that’s familiar ground for most readers of this blog. My interest was in how he saw Darwin as a gift to religion. He introduces his primary reasons early in the book, beginning with this on page 5:

When I was studying theology in Salamanca Darwin was a much-welcomed friend. The theory of evolution provided the solution to the remaining component of the problem of evil. As floods and drought were a necessary consequence of the fabric of the physical world, predators and parasites, dysfunctions and diseases were a consequence of the evolution of life. They were not a result of deficient or malevolent design: the features of organisms were not designed by the creator.

Related to that is evolution’s explanation for imperfections in nature (pages 22-23):

If functional design manifests an Intelligent Designer, why should not deficiencies indicate that the Designer is less than omniscient, or less than omnipotent? … We know that some deficiencies are not just imperfections, but are outright dysfunctional, jeopardizing the very function the organ or part is supposed to serve…. Even if the dysfunctions, cruelties, and sadism of the living world were rare, which they are not, they would still need to be attributed to the Designer if the Designer had designed the living world.

For Ayala then, as a believing Catholic Christian, evolution explains many things that seem wrong about the world: imperfections in nature, and the problem of evil.

“Not a Threat”
Evolution is, moreover, a friend of religion because (page 6):

Christians need not see evolution as a threat to their beliefs…. There need not be conflict between religion and science. Apparent contradictions only emerge when either the science or the religious beliefs, or very often both are misinterpreted.

Evolutionary theory resolves a kind of “conceptual schizophrenia” (page 42) by which we might otherwise want to attribute some of nature to natural processes, and some of it to supernatural. A full explanation of the natural world can be accomplished in just natural terms, while religion provides a genuine way of knowing about matters of meaning, love, purpose, and so forth (page 172):

The scope of science is the world of nature, the reality that is observed, directly or indirectly, by our senses. Science advances explanations concerning the natural world, explanations that are subject to the possibility of corroboration or rejection by observation or experiment. Outside that world, science has no authority, no statements to make, no business whatsoever taking one position or another. Science has nothing decisive to say about values, whether economic, aesthetic, or moral; nothing to say about the meaning of life or its purpose; nothing to say about religious beliefs (except in the case of beliefs that transcend the proper scope of religion and make assertions about the natural world that contradict scientific knowledge; such statements cannot be true).

That closing parenthesis is of course aimed directly at various versions of Creationism–any belief, that is, that contradicts evolutionary theory.

This summarizes Ayala’s position on religion and evolution: evolution solves a significant problem for religion, the problem of evil; and science and religion can be friends if they will mind their manners and remain each in their proper spheres.

This blog post will go much too long if I try to respond to all of this in one shot. I expect this will require several entries before it’s done. Having covered some ground here by just introducing the issues, I’ll limit myself to a very limited response now to part of what Ayala had to say regarding the friendship of science and religion.

It is most refreshing to see such a highly regarded scientist recognizing boundaries and limits around what science can do. He has a genuine respect for religious understandings of life; and I have absolutely no questions about the reality of his own religious convictions. There is much to appreciate there. His convictions are of a specific sort, of course; and well they should be, for what good is a vague, unformed set of beliefs?

No Threat–To What?
But he assumes a great deal of authority for his beliefs. Early on he had said that “Christians need not see evolution as a threat to their beliefs.” But what if some Christians believe in God’s literal involvement in the origin and development of life? Ayala says God is not the designer (that’s why God is absolved from responsibility for imperfections and evil). That runs counter to the beliefs many of us hold. Later on Ayala explains that our beliefs are just wrong; that we need to let loose of God’s creative involvement in the world.

Ayala’s version of evolution, which (like Kenneth Miller’s) leaves God entirely out of the process of life’s development, is a friend to Ayala’s version of Christianity. Better this than Dennett’s or Dawkins’s versions, which are clearly at enmity with Christianity. But one could wish that he had not stated so baldly that evolution is no threat to Christian beliefs, for it certainly is at odds with any view that says God has been intimately, providentially, guiding the course of life and nature from the beginning.

There is a tension there. For Ayala, that tension must always be resolved in favor of science; religiously-based knowledge about nature is no knowledge at all. That’s certainly a mainstream belief, yet it’s open to challenge. I am out of time and space to explore that now, though; I’ll have to return to it later.

Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, by Francisco Ayala. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2007. 256 pages. Amazon price $24.95.

*I’m writing this on an airplane, without the book in hand. I photocopied several pages of interest to bring on the plane with me, but I forgot to include Ayala’s biographical information. Thus my rendering of it comes from memory and must be somewhat vague until I have time to look it up and correct it.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Origins and Science | 10 Comments »

Before now, the one topic that has drawn forth the most anger on this blog has been homosexuality. Not any more. About 2 1/2 weeks ago I wrote about why the Darwin-Hitler link is so sensitive. I’ve been learning, since then, just how sensitive it really is. But that’s not all I’ve been learning. Today’s post is my reflection on that process, and it’s not so much about Darwin or Hitler as it is about us.

Many of us have very deep feelings on this matter. I have not personally heard from Holocaust victims’ family members, but we know this is still grievous to you. Others of us, even without that personal connection, remain aghast at it all. This has obviously touched a sore spot.

The reaction I’ve received here has not mostly been grief, though; it has been anger and astonishment. There were several readers who just couldn’t believe that anyone would draw the link from Darwin to Hitler. Some thought we were laying the whole blame on Darwin, though this is clearly a distortion of what I and others have been saying. Others had a more measured reaction but were still upset that we (myself, and the commenters who have supported this position) would find ethical fault in evolutionary theory. To me, it remains clear that there is an ethical fault in naturalistic evolution. It’s certainly not the kind of error that entails a Holocaust; instead, its failure is that it eliminates any strong ethical corrective to someone like a Hitler. (If you wish to continue discussing whether my analysis on that is accurate, please do so on the original thread.)

The philosophical link from Darwin to Hitler is nowhere near as strong as the historical link. I had said that it appears to be a plain historical fact that German Darwinian scientists were highly influential in establishing the kind of national ethos that could permit a Holocaust. Three different kinds of questions were raised regarding that assertion:

• There was no historical link, and how could you even say so?
• If there was any historical link between Darwin and Hitler, how should we evaluate it in light of all the other historical influences on Hitler?
• The historical linkage from Darwin to Hitler was based on contemporary misunderstandings of Darwin. Why should mistaken views on Darwin be taken as a mark against him or his work?

The first one has been well discussed already. From Darwin to Haeckel to an entire set of German intellectual elites and their widely-selling books and pamphlets, there was an historical train of ideas and events that ended up with individual and racial eugenics being promoted.

The second one goes far out of my expertise and became a learning experience for me. Let me put this in context, especially for readers who do not run your own blog. I have another name for this business: it’s white-water writing. It’s quick, and there are rocks around the next curve. There’s no river guide (editor) other than your own judgment. I adhere strongly to the principle that I will not blog on a topic that I do not know well enough to field questions and challenges on it. This time I entered in without anticipating the question.

The fact that there were multiple influences does not negate the significance of any single one of them. The Darwin-to-Nazism historical linkage remains well supported by evidence already presented. How strong was it among other influences, though? I yield the question. I do not know.

There’s yet another name for blogging like this: it’s learn-as-you-go-in-public. Which means sometimes stumbling in public. It’s not for the timid.

The third question came from Tony Hoffman, and it’s a good one. It’s parallel to one Christians face all the time. If someone claiming to be a Christian commits some atrocity, does that mean Jesus Christ should be blamed? Does it disprove the Christian faith? If someone like Haeckel claiming to follow Darwin’s theory concludes that Papuan humans are more closely related to simians than to Europeans, is that Darwin’s (or Darwinism’s) fault? If others following Haeckel advocate racial eugenics, is that either Darwin’s or Haeckel’s fault?

It took me several days of reflection before I felt ready to answer.

Somewhere along the way Charlie Scott showed us that the basis of the question is not as clear as we thought it was. Properly understood, evolutionary theory provides no true basis for Haeckel’s racism. On the other hand, as Charlie revealed,

[Haeckel] wrote that Darwin was his inspiration, that Darwin was the originator of “struggle to exist” and that he, Haeckel, studied natural selection every day. Darwin wrote back that he was greatly influenced by Haeckel and that Haeckel, among few, truly understood natural selection.

Darwin’s endorsement of Haeckel complicates the matter considerably (please see Charlie’s comment for the source of his information). Did Haeckel really get evolution so wrong after all? In hindsight he did, but what did Darwin himself think? Like almost everything else in this matter, there is ambiguity here.

Anyway, not everyone was satisfied with my answer to Tony, which I need not repeat here. That’s no surprise. It’s a complex issue. Frankly, I’m not completely satisfied with it myself. I’m still wrestling with it in my mind, still trying to learn as I go.

This topic raised considerable anger, as I’ve already said. I’ve been called names this week like never before, here and on other blogs. Why is it so upsetting to suggest this linkage existed in history? Why did it draw forth such emotion when I said there is no proper philosophical link from Darwinism to Hitlerian ethics, yet naturalistic Darwinism also eliminates good correctives for such ethics? These are just facts.

So I’m inviting another learning opportunity. What is it that has made this so anger-producing?

Someone emailed me and asked how I would feel if they wrote a history showing that 9/11 was massively influenced by Christian thinking. Actually, that’s not such an academic question. Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris have virtually done that. They say that religion caused 9/11, and that all fundamentalist belief is fundamentally flawed in pretty much the same way. I don’t know of any Christians who have gone over the top with anger at them. More recently it was suggested here that Luther was as much to blame as Darwin for the Holocaust. None of us Christians got angry over the suggestion.

I’m going to speculate on why it’s different for the Darwin-Hitler issue. This may turn out to be another white-water learning process, for I run a real risk of being wrong. (Understand, please, that I put this forth very tentatively.) I think this may have become a focal point for a large reservoir of anger against Intelligent Design in general. Expelled put it to powerful rhetorical use, which made it even more volatile. Evolution proponents have been wishing Intelligent Design would go away, and it hasn’t; in fact, Expelled put it out before the public more than ever before. It must be really frustrating. Add that to all the questions and all the historic grief and anger surrounding the Holocaust, and this is the result you get.

If that’s anywhere near the right analysis, I can see why this would have come out the way it has. It’s more sensitive than I realized before, in a post I wrote before most of us had seen the movie, including myself. At this point, I’m going to ask for readers’ awareness of the position I’ve been taking: trying to help Christians and/or ID proponents handle this kind of topic responsibly and sensitively. Whether I succeeded with that encouragement, or whether I succeeded even in following my own advice, is not for me to judge. I’ve been trying to do the best I could do.

So for what it’s worth, which may be nothing at all, that’s my reflection on the process we’ve been involved in here. I would ask that if you have further thoughts on the substantive issues involved in this topic, please continue those discussions on the threads where they have already been in progress. It’s just less confusing that way. Comments here will be open for your reflections on my reflections. I’m sure some of you have completely different perspectives, and we’ll be interested to hear them.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Arts and Culture & Origins and Science | 2 Comments »

Blog entry deleted: see here.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Origins and Science | 49 Comments »

A few days ago Tony Hoffman suggested,

Expelled’s charge and the constant revival of this aspersion on this website — that Darwin leads to Hitler — seems fundamentally wrongheaded….

Tom, you keep saying that although you concede that there is no philosophical link from Darwin to Hitler there is in fact a historical one. While I agree with you, I have no idea what your point is in raising it….

It’s a good question. Besides having had about half a dozen deadlines land on me since then, I’ve had to take time to give it some serious thought. Now that I have some time again, what, indeed, is the point of all this?

I hope Tony recognizes I didn’t start this discussion. It was brought up by a movie that’s proving to be fairly popular, as documentaries go. There were some who objected that the Darwin-Hitler link was an ID proponents’ fabrication. I’ve weighed in to respond to that, but I didn’t start it.

Also, if one reviews what I’ve actually posted on this topic, I think “constant revival of this aspersion” is overstated. I wrote one post calling for understanding on why this is such a sensitive issue. I hope an approach of that sort isn’t considered off limits. Other than that, I’ve posted just one link to an article on another website, and two other sentences. Of course there has also been discussion, fueled by participants on all sides of the issue.

But whether or not I’m not to blame as Tony apparently thinks I am, that doesn’t address his real question: why would anybody expend any effort on this at all? Isn’t it all a complete red herring, a distraction from genuine issues? I don’t think so.

First, we ought to learn from history. That ought to be relatively uncontroversial. If the German scientists made a mistake interpreting Darwin, then for heaven’s sake, let’s not forget what they did, and make the same kinds of mistakes all over again! I see potential for it even in our enlightened 21st century. Haeckel’s biggest error was dehumanizing some races of humanity. Peter Singer and PETA are doing the same for the whole human race. For Ingrid Newkirk of PETA, “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” For Singer, we are guilty of “speciesism” if we hold humans to be of more value than animals. This is Haeckel’s error writ large.

Second, it’s not quite true that there is no philosophical link from Darwin to Hitler. There are two at least two valid connections between them.

A. There is an ethical consequence to Darwinism. It is not, as was supposed at the time, that it leads to a moral requirement that we “advance the species.” The connection is this: naturalistic Darwinism, if taken to be the sole explanation for all of life,* erases all ethical requirements. It is specifically the naturalism–closely related to atheism–that is the serious problem in all non-theistic versions of evolution (which I think answers Point 1 in Tony’s comment).

I’ve never seen a good refutation or even rebuttal for this. Paul stated the issue quite well two and a half years ago, long before the current debate began:

Just to be clear, I think the Holocaust was wrong. From my culture’s morality, from many cultures’ morality, but not from Hitler’s. I would fight against it no less.

That’s a hole big enough to drive a Panzer division through. Paul would “fight against it,” and for that I commend him; yet for him, that’s all he has. The only ultimate moral decider is power:

A relativistic moral law is made when a group of people (family, tribe, culture, country, etc.) decide to do so. There is no absolute or objective foundation for doing so: as I’ve said before, it is merely a question of power what laws are made…. When differing moral cultures clash, it’s up to power to decide the difference. Doesn’t look pretty, but that’s the way it is, assuming there’s no God.

Fighting is all anyone can do. There’s no recourse to any higher ethic. If Hitler had won, his power would have decided the difference between the differing moral cultures. Now, lest anyone think I’m picking on Paul, I think he’s right, based on his assumptions. I think he gets it. “That’s the way it is, assuming there’s no God,” says Paul, quite rightly; and that’s an assumption that squares up quite nicely with naturalistic, unguided evolution.

B. There is an ontological implication in Darwinism: humans are the same kind of thing as animals. Hitler applied this selectively, to be sure, but he applied it with great effect. He packed up hordes of people on trains like cattle, took them to the slaughtering plant, and used their parts as raw materials for industry. Yes–they wove gunny sacks out of Jewish hair. You can see unused remains of it still warehoused at Dachau. This, I believe, is why we abhor Hitler so much more than other great murderers like Stalin or Mao: they all killed; but only Hitler so thoroughly dehumanized. Darwinism dehumanizes in a different way. Hitler treated humans like animals; Darwinism says that’s what we are.

Third, ideas matter. I suppose we could trace all kinds of historical linkages to the Holocaust. In fact, I’ve actually heard people say this, even taking it to ridiculous extremes: “if you’re going to say Darwin was responsible, then so were the people who invented shower heads. It couldn’t have happened without them, either!” The difference is in ideas and their consequences. Darwinism–the naturalistic version–is not ethically neutral. It is not lacking in ethical implications. True, it doesn’t prescribe an ethic–it just applies a kind of metaphorical poison gas to any overarching, culture-transcending ethic a nation might turn to, in deciding whether to stand with or against a would-be tyrant like Hitler.

Fourth, contrary to Tony’s point 2, influencers certainly can be blamed for the actions of others that follow. They can be blamed to the extent that others did harm while following them:

• Doing actions the influencers recommended, taught, or prescribed, or
• Doing actions for which the influencers opened an ideological or ethical door, which would not otherwise have been opened.

Darwin was responsible in the second sense. This is the sense in which Berlinski (in Expelled), and Weikart (in his book on this topic) said, “Darwinism was not a sufficient condition for Hitler’s atrocities, but it was a necessary condition.” Without Darwinism, I believe, Germany would have resisted Hitler. It was not the only necessary link leading up to Nazism, but it was one of them.

*This is the sense in which I am speaking of “Darwinism” throughout this article: naturalistic evolution by means of random variation and natural selection, unguided by any intelligence. I recognize there are other versions of evolutionary theory.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Arts and Culture & Origins and Science | 73 Comments »

William Dembski asked again yesterday, “What’s wrong with uttering ‘Darwin’ and ‘Hitler’ in the same breath?” There actually is a connection, he says (rightly), so why is something like Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed so vilified for saying so? Expelled’s most criticized feature in the period prior to its release has been its use of Nazi-related imagery. (I was on an airplane last night, so I still haven’t seen the film myself.)

Dembski asked this question rhetorically. It would help to consider some actual answers anyway. I propose four of them here.

1. There is no inevitable link from Darwin to Hitler.

Richard Dawkins pointed this out in his predictably scathing review of Expelled:

It is one of the classic philosophical fallacies to derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. Stein (or whoever wrote his script for him) is implying that Hitler committed that fallacy with respect to Darwinism.

He goes on to say he doubts Hitler is more guilty of this fallacy than other world leaders have been. Dawkins is right at least to this extent: to say, or even to imply, that there is a strict philosophical and ethical progression from Darwin to Dachau is wrong. Darwin’s theory was a description of how life’s complexity and diversity arose. It’s a statement of a condition of nature. As such, it contains no ethical imperative. It just is, or rather, Darwinian theory just claims to tell about an “is.” Oughts don’t come from is-es.

Now, as I have suggested elsewhere, we still have to wonder about the problem this raises. For Dawkins and others, neo-Darwinism is the sole explanation for life. If the sole explanation of life cannot lead to any oughts, then are there any oughts at all? Where do they come from? Dawkins’s own ethics (see his review article, in the paragraph about Hitler) have nothing to do with his beliefs about what life is about. They almost seemed snatched out of thin air, so disconnected are they from his other views regarding reality.

Nevertheless, we must be quite cautious never to suggest that Darwin led inevitably to Hitler by philosophical necessity.

2. We’ve forgotten that there is an historical link from Darwin to Hitler.

Darwinism did not have to lead to Hitler, but the way evolution was interpreted in Germany, it happened anyway. The story is told in Richard Weikart’s From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. David Klinghoffer has recently written a short synopsis of the same. Weikart traces a line among German scientists, physicians, psychiatrists and other thinkers that began a (philosophically false yet historically real) belief that, under evolutionary theory, the “progress of the species” is a great moral imperative. Progress was defined such that the mentally or physically handicapped were impediments to this progress, so they should not be allowed to reproduce. Eugenic practices–both forced sterilization and “elimination” (killing)–were vigorously promoted.

This theory was not confined just to individuals, though. The Northern European “species” of humans (yes, they used that term) was considered the most advanced. Ernst Haeckel, famous for doctoring drawings of embryos, used his creative artistry also to “show” that some “species” of humans were more close related to simians (apes, etc.) than to Europeans. I’ve been unable to find an internet-available version of the Haeckel woodcut that Weikart reproduced in his book, but there is one very similar to it here. Just imagine the same, only rearranged to show a “progression” from human to ape, in which the Hottentot and Papuan are placed next to the simian, and look much more simian than human (as Haeckel represents them).

Haeckel was not the only one. There was, as a matter of historical fact, an influential group of people writing of a moral imperative to improve humanity by eliminating its “lesser” members. These scientists do not appear to have been particularly anti-Semitic–that was HItler’s special contribution to the horror. But they laid a cultural groundwork. I’m convinced that Hitler could never have persuaded an entire nation to cooperate with his murderous program if they had not already been conditioned by this principle of racially-oriented eugenics. Darwin has hardly the only basis for Nazism–war and anti-Semitism have a much longer history than that!–but this particular form of murder could not, in my opinion, have happened without the groundwork laid by German Darwinists.

3. The Darwin-Hitler link carries incredible emotional and rhetorical power.

I find myself having to pause often for a sigh or a deep breath when I’m writing on this topic. Hitler was a horror. He invokes an incredible emotional effect–emotions that are entirely legitimate. We recoil from the images of the Holocaust.

Now when I try to put myself in the shoes of someone who is not prone in the first place to support Expelled’s message, I can easily imagine feeling outraged. Part of that outrage would be toward the Holocaust itself, and part of it would be toward the possibility that Expelled is making an effective point with it. But this leads to a far deeper and more important issue:

4. We’ve sacralized the Holocaust, so that it seems wrong to use it in support of another purpose.

Dembski’s article, to which this one is a response, refers to the Anti-Defamation League’s complaint of “trivializing the horrors of the Holocaust.” I don’t think that just speaking of historical realities leading up to the Holocaust could be considered trivializing. The problem is that this was used to support another theory, another agenda.

Let me compare this to something else on a far smaller and less important scale. For me as a musician and as a Christian believer, there is hardly anything higher or greater in all of art than Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. Musically magnificent, it is also an incredibly glorious recounting of the greatness of Jesus Christ and his coming kingdom. Some bright advertising agency apparently got the idea, though, that its message was not much more than, “Gosh, I’m happy.” And they used it as the musical score for a toilet tissue advertisement. I was incensed. I think that ad disappeared rather quickly–I don’t watch much TV so I don’t know for sure–but I still get worked up just remembering it.

Six million deaths are considerably more significant than that, and if we can distinguish “sacralizing” from “deifying,” then there is something sacred, holy, and untouchable about the six million–each of them as individuals, and collectively as the victims of the Holocaust. We tread on holy ground here, and we ought to expect emotions to rise quickly and forcefully. Why is it wrong to say “Darwin” and “Hitler” in the same breath? Partly for the same reason, magnified, that it’s wrong to use the Hallelujah Chorus to sell toilet tissue.

And yet…

Yet there is a difference, too. God help us if we don’t learn from the Holocaust. If there really was an historical link from Darwin to Hitler–and there was–we must learn what happened, and why. The very sacredness of the Holocaust, the memory of the victims, demands it.

Richard Weikart’s recent article on this topic outlines six lessons to learn from it. I will focus on just one. What was it about Hitler and the Holocaust that was (and is) so horrifying? Stalin and Mao both killed more people than Hitler did. Pol Pot and Idi Amin rank high among genocidal maniacs. Why Hitler? Why is it that when we want to point to one glaring example of utter evil, it’s always his name that comes up?

I think it’s because before he killed the six million, he dehumanized them. He dehumanized them rhetorically, in his writings and his speeches; and he dehumanized them by packing them like merchandise on trains, carting them off to death factories, killing them by assembly-line methods, using them for horrific experiments, and storing parts in warehouses. There’s still a roomful of human hair at Dachau, according to a friend of mine who has visited there. The thought angers me deeply even as I write this. Yes, Hitler was worse than the rest!

Before Hitler, Haeckel dehumanized vast sections of humanity. He did it in the name of evolution. And here, I think, the philosophical link is valid. There may not be an “ought” to derive from the “is” of evolution, but there is this: if Darwin’s version (along with its 21st century updates) is the whole story of humans, then there isn’t much difference between us and any other organism. There is no such thing as “more advanced,” because evolution knows no advancement except for the more excellent adaptation to an ecological niche. Ingrid Newkirk of PETA can rightly say, “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy,” because there’s no real difference at the bottom of it all, no ontological difference.

I do not think it’s prostituting the Holocaust to draw this lesson from it: that which dehumanizes, points us toward Auschwitz and Dachau.

Conclusion

None of this has a lot to do with the manner in which Nazism was portrayed in Expelled. It couldn’t–I haven’t seen the movie yet. I hope, though, that it will help bring understanding to both sides: that supporters of Darwin will recognize there’s an actual historical basis for linking Darwin to Hitler, and it’s not wrong to say so. I hope others who disagree with evolution will be aware of the emotions we may stir up by saying so. I hope we can reason together on these things, learning from the facts, recognizing the real feelings, learning for the future.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Arts and Culture & Origins and Science | 43 Comments »

Media reports on Intelligent Design, with their frequent misunderstandings and distortions, can make a person cringe. Unfortunately, there are times when ID defenders and creationists can make you cringe, too. There are plenty of good ways to stand in sympathy with Intelligent Design, to support creationism (not the same topic, but closely enough related to be included in the same post), or to attack evolutionary theory. There are also some not-so-good ways.

Here are the three most serious mistakes to avoid:

1. Speaking Of What We Do Not Know
As an undergrad at Michigan State, I was for a time involved in the controversy on “scientific creationism,” which was drawing a lot of attention in Christian circles at the time. The discussion hinged around whether the fossils, rocks, and stars really pointed to an ancient earth, and whether Genesis 1 and 2 really demanded a young-earth interpretation. I came to a very freeing realization at the time: this is a very complex subject. Much of it is really for specialists. And I was a music major! Sure, I could read evolutionists’ opinions or creationists’ opinions, but could I form a knowledgeable opinion on the science? As for Genesis 1 and 2, even that was a matter of discussion among strongly principled Christian scholars. How literal is it to be taken? It has much of the characteristics of poetry–is it meant to be (at least somewhat) figurative?

I settled on this: I don’t know about the age of the earth. I am not qualified to settle the issue, even in my own mind. I’m thoroughly convinced (on other grounds) that God was intimately involved in whatever happened. I’m firmly convinced (also on independent grounds) that humans are uniquely made in God’s image, that we were created to be in fellowship with Him, that we went wrong in some way that Genesis 2 and 3 accurately portray even if some of it is figurative, and that Jesus Christ is the way back to a right relationship with God. The rest is complex and I need to study more before I decide.

I’ve done a whole lot of study since then. I know a whole lot more than I did then, and I have convictions now about some things I suspended judgment on earlier. But I’m still not a biologist or paleontologist. I could wish that I could study all the books and papers, and form my own independent conclusions on every aspect of the ID controversy, but it’s not possible. So I try to speak to topics on which I’ve done my homework.

Too often ID supporters, creationists, or Christians in general will dismiss evolution for reasons that are just wrong. Too often, it’s because all they’ve read is what ID supporters and creationists have written about it. You can’t understand ID by reading what Richard Dawkins or P.Z. Myers say about it, and you can’t understand evolution by reading what the Discovery Institute says about it. You have to read what each position’s supporters say. Otherwise you’re not ready to take a stand.

I am not saying you can’t have an opinion where you haven’t done your homework. I’m also not saying that what you know about God from other sources–revelation, apologetics, faith in general–has to be put on hold on account of this one topic. I am saying that we allought to admit what we don’t know, especially when the topic is as complex as this one.

ID skeptics aren’t asking my opinion, but the way they often misread and/or distort ID’s claims, it’s clear to me that many (not all, but many) of them have also not done their homework. (’Nuff said.)

2. Speaking Without Respect and Courtesy
ID supporters and creationists take note: evolution is not stupid, and evolutionists are not idiots. Evolution supporters also take note: ID and creationism are not stupid, and their supporters are not idiots. Ravi Zacharias said it well: “To the extent that you can make your opponent’s position look ridiculous, to that extent you probably do not understand it.” He could have added (and knowing how he speaks, I’m sure somewhere he has), to the extent you make it your business to make your opponent ridiculous, to that extent you’re defeating any purpose you have of being persuasive.

I’ve gotten myself embroiled today in a discussion about ID and religion on Panda’s Thumb. As of this afternoon, there are several commenters who have engaged me in this discussion respectfully, on a substantive level. There’s one commenter whose tone has not been so pleasant. Guess which ones I’m more likely to listen to? In fact, I’m not responding to or even reading anything further by that commenter.

Aristotle said rhetoric–including persuasion–involves logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos is the word, the logic, the force of the argument. By itself it produces little persuasive effect, and does little good. Ethos is roughly credibility, that which causes the person to believe that the person has a right relationship to the topic, by virtue of study, experience, trustworthiness, and so on. Pathos has to do with the person’s relationship to the audience. The audience is always asking, though usually not consciously: Does this person understand me? Does his/her view of the topic have any relevance to me? Should I care about what this person cares about? All three of Aristotle’s factors are vital to effective communication.

And need I remind us of Christ’s example and command to love even our enemies, and to treat others as we would have them treat us?

3. Not Speaking of What We Do Know
I don’t want to be misunderstood as advocating a timid stance. That’s not what humility is about. We ought to speak clearly what we understand clearly, and present our convictions as convictions–things of which we are convinced. What we don’t understand clearly, for that matter, we can still feel free to discuss openly.

Tying The Three Together
For those who are Christians, Colossians 4:6 summarizes it best:

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

It’s being gracious, and knowing, and from that stance, speaking and answering.
And Applying The Principles
There’s a movie coming out soon, Expelled, which is going to be very favorable to ID, and will certainly raise the volume of this debate. ID sympathizers, let’s not make the mistake of acting triumphalistic over it, or speaking as the whole question is settled for good–even if the movie really succeeds in making its case.
As the volume of debate raises, let’s raise the tone along with it.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Arts and Culture & Origins and Science | 21 Comments »

Yesterday we heard about claims that Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed employed deception in interviews with Intelligent Design opponents. Today, the other broiling controversy:

As for publicity, the filmmakers are apparently relying on bribery to promote their propaganda. Gotta spend money to make money, right? Schools will be “paid” according to the number of ticket stubs they collect. You’d think that a creationist propaganda movie would have other publicity options at Christian fundamentalist schools. But apparently, nothing is a sin when you’re doing the work of God. Bribery, brainwashing, crusading … it’s all for the greater good.

Aaron Elias, New University Online, University of California, Irvine

The charge is that the film’s producers are bribing Christian schools to bring their students to see it. L. Ron Brown (The Frame Problem) echoes:

Producers of the Intelligent Design propaganda film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed are trying to bribe Christian schools in America to facilitate or even force their students to go see their movie.

It’s a marketing tactic. Schools that purchase large blocks of tickets for their students will receive donations from the production company.

Does anybody remember the Golden Compass movie? Its producers tried to market it through an “Amazing Student Sweepstakes (pdf)” and by trying to persuade teachers to make the related books required reading. Sure, I raised a big complaint about that. It was not, however, that it was so horrible to try to market a film through schools, or to use monetary incentives. My complaint was just that it was wrong–on Constitutional grounds–to make required reading of materials that were so markedly hostile toward religion.

So what’s the problem with Expelled? It’s “propaganda,” says Aaron Elias, “brainwashing, crusading … ” The problem, in other words, is that Aaron Elias and L. Ron Brown disagree with the movie’s message. Which they haven’t even seen yet. What if the movie makes its case successfully? Maybe that’s the real fear.

Next in this series: How ID proponents ought to deal with the pre-controversy, and prepare for the real controversy when the movie appears.

Related:

Expelled: Then What?

Posted by Tom Gilson under Arts and Culture & Origins and Science | 93 Comments »

The number one Google or Yahoo! search phrase by which new visitors are coming to this blog now is “Expelled.” Hundreds of you have looked it up on this website alone. This is surprising, since I’ve only blogged on the movie once, way back in September. More than six weeks ahead of its April 18 release, this movie is already drawing a lot of interest.

The film’s premise is that for academics, believing in Intelligent Design–no, even having a certain level of sympathy toward it–is asking for trouble. Real, significant, career trouble. I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t comment on how well it makes its case. I’ve been watching the controversy, though. Pharyngula’s P.Z. Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota, Morris, represents the contrary position. Based on his IM address I conclude he is a Macintosh user–we agree on that, at least! We disagree on much else, though. To say he opposes Intelligent Design is an understatement on about the same scale as “The Ku Klux Klan is unfavorable toward African-Americans.”

The movie’s producers, in pursuit of a balanced perspective on their topic, requested interviews from evolutionists like Myers, Richard Dawkins, and others. They agreed–and now they’re crying foul over it. I think it’s comically sad. When Richard Dawkins produced a BBC television series on the alleged evils of religion, he presented some of the worst examples and edits representing the Christian position, and left (for example) a very intelligent discussion with fellow Oxford professor Alister McGrath on the cutting room floor. Expelled’s producers invited comment from the best of the evolutionist side.

Myers’s specific complaint is that he was deceived into appearing in an anti-evolution film. He could have asked a few questions if he was worried about that. The request for interview they sent him included,

We are interested in asking you a number of questions about the disconnect/controversy that exists in America between Evolution, Creationism and the Intelligent Design movement.

Did he just assume that nobody in the world who raises that question might disagree with his position? The producers sent him an advance copy of every question they were planning to ask him. You can be quite sure Dawkins did not do that for Ted Haggard. In fact, it’s quite out of the ordinary. Expelled’s producers went out of their way to give fair treatment to the contrary side.

Myers’s complains that the production company gave him a fake name. There was no deception there. It is common industry practice for subdivisions to have different names than their parent companies, which was the case this time.

Myers also says he was misrepresented:

What? I didn’t do any interviews for pro-creation films, and I certainly haven’t said that “freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry” aren’t part of the university. There must be some mistake.

I haven’t seen the film, but it’s easy to see that the mistake is Myers’s, and a rather grandiose one at that. No one said these were Myers’s words. Does he think the whole film is about what he had to say?

Further distortion:

I’m wondering why the Discovery Institute would be so enthused about this movie. It lays it’s [sic] premise on the line: science is flawed because it excludes god [sic--some people don't know that proper nouns are capitalized in English] and the supernatural. It’s one big promo for religion — which means it’s going to further undercut Intelligent Design creationism’s [sic] claims to be a secular idea.

He appears to believe that if the movie exposes institutions’ bigotry favoring philosophical materialism, it is therefore “one big promo for religion.” The two issues do not equate, however. Myers, who hasn’t seen the film either, at least as of the date he wrote this piece, is jumping off a cliff to a conclusion. He doesn’t know what the film is going to say about religion. What we do know about the film–because this is what has been publicly released–is that it is a promo in favor of First Amendment free speech and academic freedom.

I think Myers’s closing was intended tongue-in-cheek, and we ought to take it with a sense of humor. Either that, or he’s back in a grandiose mode. We shouldn’t blame him for that, I suppose; after all, Expelled is making him a movie star. Here’s how he ends his article:

Oh, well. I have two warnings for the creationists.

One, I will go see this movie, and I will cheer loudly at my 30 seconds or whatever on the screen, and I will certainly disembowel its arguments here and in any print venue that wants me. That’s going to be fun.

Two, next time I’m asked to be recorded for a creationist propaganda film, I will demand more money, and a flight and a limousine to the premiere. They can pay for my tuxedo rental, too. And my hotel room will have a jacuzzi and a bowl of M&Ms — green ones only.

It’s all a transparent attempt to discredit in advance something that the evolutionist side may have genuine reason to be worried about. What if the film actually succeeds in making its case? What if there really is evidence of unfounded bigotry and thought-suppression in academia? What if it’s presented credibly?

Aside from his caustic communication style, which I can’t say I really enjoy, I wouldn’t mind watching Myers’s having “fun” trying to “disembowel” the film’s arguments. I would even bring him green M&Ms. I wonder if he will actually address the film’s points, though. So far, based on this post of his, he’s exposing straw-man caricatures instead.

Related:

• The controversy over Expelled’s promotional tactics
• Then what?

The film’s producers’ perspectives were drawn from these sources:

• Interview with Walt Ruloff, Part 1 and Part 2
• Interview with Mark Mathis

Posted by Tom Gilson under Arts and Culture & Origins and Science | 76 Comments »

Book Review

A friend of mine has an overly strong commitment to things she learned when she was growing up. “Doctors say you need to drink eight glasses of water a day” is one. I ran across a repot in which a leading researcher in this field told of his attempts to track down the source of that belief. He found no medical evidence for it. Apparently it just showed up one day in some magazine, and grew. He said there was no truth to it whatever. My friend’s response: “I don’t believe it.” She wouldn’t look at the source material; she already had her facts.

There is research out this week casting doubt on the belief that stretching before sports activities reduces injuries. I’m not going to bother telling my friend. She won’t read the report, and she wouldn’t believe me if I said. She knows we should all drink eight glasses of water a day, and that stretching before exercise reduces injuries. She knows it because that’s what she has always heard.

I expect similar reactions from evolutionists to Mike Gene’s The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues. Everyone in the pro-evolution, anti-Intelligent Design crowd knows that:

• ID is thinly disguised creationism
• ID is just negative science (nothing but picking points against evolution)
• ID has no positive research program
• ID makes no predictions
• ID relies on a “God of the gaps” approach to knowledge
• ID presents no testable hypotheses
• ID is dogmatically driven by people with a theological/philosophical agenda

Everybody knows these things. Mike Gene shows that none of them are true. The evolutionists, I fear, are not going to read it; they’re just going to say, “I don’t believe it.” Like my friend, they will stick with what’s always been “true” for them in the past.

The author uses a pseudonym, obviously, and as far as I know no one has cracked his real identity (or if they have, they’re not telling). He says in the intro to the book that he remains anonymous so that his ideas can be evaluated for themselves, without regard for who has presented them. It seems likely he’s also carrying out some career protection, too. If he’s working in a university biology department (and yes, he does know his science), it could obviously risky for him to “come out” as an ID supporter. (See his Design Matrix website for more.)

The way that he supports ID is refreshingly unique, however. He doesn’t argue for a conclusion of Intelligent Design at all. He argues more modestly, for a suspicion of Intelligent Design. He would have a beef with dogmatists on either side of the issue. Quite helpfully he distinguishes between the strong evidence required for conviction by a court of law, and evidence required by an investigating detective. A detective arrives on the scene with nothing but questions. His first objective is to move toward reasonable suspicions. A little hint there, a vague clue there: these things can move him toward a theory of a crime; and from there he can begin to look for more definite signs. Eventually, much further down the road, proof may come. Mike Gene believes we should recognize ID is in the developing suspicion stage: there is no hard scientific proof of design, but there are hints and clues that raise a most reasonable suspicion, and which can lead to a search for more definite signs.

These hints and clues he summarizes into his “Design Matrix,” four relatively independent factors to test for in nature:

• Analogy with known instances of design
• Discontinuity with observed or means by which evolution works
• Rationality apparent in the design of the natural feature
• Foresight apparent in the design of the natural feature

These are defined such that they can all lead to testable research hypotheses. We’re not talking about black/white, unambiguous research results, however (”Evolution never could have done this!” or “Evolution absolutely could have done this, it’s easy!”). Natural phenomena can be scored on a continuum, Mike Gene says; we’re still in the detective stage, not the judge and jury stage. We’re looking for suspicions of ID, so we should be open to gradations on the scales of the Design Matrix. Only one of them, by the way (Discontinuity), bears any relationship to the tired stereotype that ID is nothing but a negative science that resorts to god-of-the-gaps thinking.

Mike Gene wrote this book with a sense of humor. (Thank God for an evolution/ID-related book with a sense of humor!) The book wraps around a theme of the Rabbit and the Duck. It’s a metaphor about our preconceptions, and the way they can color our perceptions. I won’t try to replay it for you; I’ll just quote the book’s final paragraph, and leave it to you to read the book and chase down the metaphor for yourself:

So as we begin our journey, these lessons, coupled with all the lessons in these chapters, must be kept in mind. We are not engaging in a Duck Hunt; we are going to chase the Rabbit. So, do you see that rabbit hole over your shoulder? Yeah, that one. Wanna have some fun? Well, grab your Design Matrix, and follow that Rabbit.

(There’s much more Rabbit fun on the Telic Thoughts blog, where Mike Gene writes frequently.)

Some of you reading this “know” that ID is nothing but negative science, it’s just god-of-the-gaps, and it’s a mere religious ploy. You won’t read the book; you won’t accept that ID-related thinking can lead to genuine research questions; you’ll just say, “I don’t believe it.” I strongly urge you to get your hands on a copy of this uniquely creative approach to Intelligent Design, and find out where the Rabbit leads you.

The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues by Mike Gene. No City: Arbor Vitae Press, 2007. 291 pages plus index. Amazon Price US$16.47.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Origins and Science | 14 Comments »