If ever anyone wanted to try to tell me that the media is unbiased, the Science section of the New York Times would prove otherwise. Today's headlines include this doozie: "How Quantum Physics Can Teach Biologists About Evolution."[1] The presumption inherent here is that evolution is something biologists ought to know about. There is also a presumption that quantum physics is worth learning, but I will not debate that one for now, I will take it for granted that it is. The evolution presumption is confirmed further down in the article.
Usually, when confronting the opponents of evolution, biologists make the case that evolution should be taught because it is true.
They cite radiocarbon dating to show that Earth is billions of years old, not a few thousand years old, as some creationists would have it. Biologists cite research on microbes, or the eye, or the biology of the cell to shoot down arguments that life is so "irreducibly complex" that only a supernatural force or agent could have called it into being, as intelligent designers would have it.
And when scientists named Steve (hundreds of them by now) decided to advance the cause of evolution in the classroom and honor the evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould by forming "Project Steve," the T-shirts they printed said in part, "Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry."
The battling biologists are right. But someone uneducated in the scientific method who listens to the arguments over evolution could be forgiven for thinking that they boil down to "my theory is better than your theory," with both sides preaching with theological fervor.
Scientists don't talk often enough or loud enough about the real strength of evolution - not that it is correct, but that it meets the definition of science.[2]
There is so much wrong with that block of text that its hard to say where to begin. This author has the same presumption that there is an absolute concept of true and false to be found, one explanation is True, and all others are False. The False explanations may be more or less useful, as they approximate more or less closely the reality we live in, but they remain fundamentally flawed, and thus are not True explanations. It is then only by accepting and in light of this common understanding that our relative positions can be accurately evaluated. This is not the debate between a dogmatist (me) and someone proposing a theory. This is a debate between two sides that both accept that there is a True (using the capitol 't' to denote absolute) explanation, and both of which think they know it.
To start with, it is vital that you understand that not all proponents of Intelligent Design believe that creation occurred in seven calendar days of twenty-four hours each. Many accept the old-earth hypothesis. The only reason to introduce the old-earth/young-earth debate in an article on evolution is because most readers will dismiss any idea presented by a young-earth proponent out of hand. Further, the author is rhetorically hoping that the two ideas will become inextricably mixed in the reader's mind, so that arguments such as mine that the two are separate debates will be dismissed as well. If you come to believe that I am accepting an old-earth hypothesis only as a step towards imposing a fact-blind theocracy on you, then you will not listen to me, no matter how reasoned I might be.
Next, the author points to the eye or the biology of the cell as proof that life is not "irreducibly complex,"[2] a phrase used to describe a system that could not have come via random successive changes. This is particularly interesting as these are among the areas of biology most successfully used by intelligent design proponents to prove that life is "irreducibly complex." Dr. Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box remains virtually unchallenged; the most cited critic that I am aware of, Dr. Kenneth Miller, resorts to straw man arguments and similar rhetorical tricks to avoid confronting Dr. Behe's proof. Similarly, the explanation of the eye that Dr. Stephen Jay Gould proposed is the type of story one would expect of Mr. Kipling, not the type of explanation one expects and should demand of a scientist.[3]
Lastly, or at least the last point I intend to address here and now, the author asserts that the biggest strength of evolution is that it (implied "alone") meets the definition of science. This is clarified by stating that "Science looks to explain nature through nature."[4} This is, however, a misleading definition. What the author actually intends is that science is defined to be explanations of events and phenomena based on "materialist"[5] presuppositions. If we were to accept this definition of science, the author would be correct, evolution would be the only viable explanation of life, and intelligent design would be out of bounds. That definition however, is at once modern (Newton for example did not hold it), and unnecessary. Materialists claim that to allow for a Creator, to allow the God that Catholics acknowledge to figure in scientific explanations would destroy science. The typical line of reasoning is that every question would simply be answered "Because God created it that way." This is certainly possible, but it is not a rational or historically supportable position to take. A related position, that faith would with its dogma cripple science, is generally based on the Church's treatment of Galileo. Unfortunately for the Church, and, in the end, for all of us, Galileo's trial and the causes of his punishment are largely misunderstood.
I am going to tangent for a moment here as I am unsure that I have covered this before. Galileo was punished not for what he theorized, but for the assertion that science can do more than "save the facts." Galileo explicitly asserted that man can know what is True from observation alone. Step back for a moment to the time before the first satellite was launched. Before we could directly observe the motion of the Earth. Note well that I implicitly accept here that the Earth does move. Before that time however, could we know that the Earth in fact moved? We could not. We could show that the heliocentric model fit the available facts better than the known geocentric models, but this theoretical niceness does not prove that God did not do something messy. You could argue from a theological standpoint that God would not do something messy, but you cannot hold that He could not. Science then is limited in what it can prove. It can show explanations that fit the available facts, and it can assert that one explanation fits the available facts better than any other. To the extent that it can observe, it can appeal to common sense to argue that the explanation is not just useful but True. In the end, however, it is possible that something as yet undiscovered will overthrow that theory, prove it un-True, or that while it is the best the human mind can synthesize, that some "messier" process is in fact the True one. These are possibilities that science cannot exclude, and thus science cannot demonstrate Truth, but only show what is most pragmatic. As a practical example, consider that until Mr. (Dr.?) Plank, no one would have considered quantum mechanics, and so would have, before him, falsely asserted that the previous understanding of reality was the True one. As a second example, grant me for the sake of argument that some miraculous event were to occur. Say that someone was miraculously cured at Lourdes France. Science would theorize about this, come to some materialistic explanation. However, because in this hypothetical (it matters not that I consider it to have actual examples) situation we have granted that the miraculous did occur, these materialistic examples would be simple, scientific, and false. And yet, the author of this Times article would have us teach and believe these explanations over those of the Church.
From the previous two examples then, we can see that we need some other explanation of science. The Church, in its investigation of miracles, offers one. Science is the search for the True explanation, allowing for, but not encouraging, reliance on direct Divine action. Not encouraging, just as the Church is reluctant to certify a miracle, requiring stringent evidence that no material process can account for the event or phenomena, and like science, open to continued investigation to determine if yet newer theories can do what the older body of knowledge could not: disprove the Divine as the best explanation.
[1] Dean, Cornelia. "How Quantum Physics Can Teach
Biologists About Evolution" New York Times (On-line Edition)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/science/05essa.html?ex=1278216000&en=5bf9afd580133c74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
[2] Same as above.
[3] Unfortunately I have lost
most of the references for these statements. This kind of data loss on
my part necessarily reduces the value of this post. The desire to reduce
such reference loss was a non-trivial part of the motivation for
starting this journal of "unfinished thoughts."
[4] Dean,
above.
[5] Properly understood, or at least as I use it (which
I believe is the proper understanding), materialism is the idea that
everything proceeds from matter. Thus everything ultimately comes from
the behavior of atoms (or in a more modern understanding, quarks and
other fundamental particle's), which are themselves uncreated. Most
stringently, materialism allows only for uncreated particles which must
be eternal. Most leniently, it allows for a Creator as a First Cause,
creating the conditions from which the Big Bang occurred.