Not to beat a dead horse (I think it’s still alive), but I vehemently oppose those evolutionists and accommodationists who won’t affirm that evolution is unguided and purposeless (in the sense of not being directed by a higher intelligence or teleological force).  For to the best of our knowledge evolution, like all natural processes, is purposeless and unguided. After all, scientists have no problem saying that the melting of glaciers, the movement of tectonic plates, or the decay of atoms are processes that are unguided and purposeless.

So when you hear people who accept evolution nevertheless refusing to admit that it’s unguided and purposeless, you know you’re dealing with someone who is osculating the rump of faith. For it’s only evolution that elicits these disclaimers, and it’s only evolution that requires such disclaimers to satisfy religious believers.

But evolution is, as far as we can tell, purposeless and unguided.  There seems to be no direction, mutations are random, and we haven’t detected a teleological force or agent that pushes it in one direction.  And it’s important to realize this: the great importance of Darwin’s theory of natural selection is that an unguided, purposeless process can nevertheless produce animals and plants that are exquisitely adapted to their environment.  That’s why it’s called natural selection, not supernatural selection or simply selection.

Theistic evolution, then, is supernaturalism, and admitting its possibility denies everything we know about how evolution works.  It waters down science with superstition. It should be no crime—in fact, it should be required—for teachers to tell student that natural selection is apparently a purposeless and unguided process (I use the word “apparently” because we’re not 100% sure, but really, do we need to tell physics students that the decay of an atom is “apparently” purposeless?).

One well-known advocate of evolution has taken great efforts not only to accommodate theistic evolution, but to prevent a major biology teachers’ organization from saying that evolution is purposeless and unguided.  That is Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) and recipient of this year’s Richard Dawkins Award.  

First the requisite encomiums. Eugenie and her associates at the NCSE have done awesome battle against creationism, both in the classroom and the courtroom, and she well deserves her praise (and the Dawkins award) for fighting the brushfires of creationism and keeping our classrooms a venue for pure science.

Except, that is, for theistic evolution, which she apparently refuses to disclaim, at least professionally.  This story has been told before (see Larry Moran’s account at Sandwalk), but I came across it again yesterday when doing research for a book, reading a paper in Scientific American by Larson and Witham (1999; see reference below; free pdf at link). They recount this tale in a piece about science and religion in America:

Dawkins is well known for his uncompromising views and has likened belief in God to belief in fairies. He considers it intellectually dishonest to live with contradictions such as doing science during the week and attending church on Sunday.

Eugenie C. Scott, director of the anticreationist National Center for Science Education, is mindful of the public relations dividends at stake when combatants such as [Phillip] Johnson and Dawkins insist that the debate between science and religion, belief and nonbelief, evolution and creation, brooks no compromise. One of her showdowns came in the fall of 1997. On the agenda for the board of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) was a vote about its 1995 “Statement on the Teaching of Evolution.” The statement had become infamous in creationist circles because it said that evolution is “an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process”—which to some implied atheism.

Note again that, as far as we can tell, evolution is indeed unsupervised, unpredictable, natural, and impersonal.  Larson and Witham continue:

Two reputable scholars, religious historian Huston Smithand philosopher Alvin Plantinga, suggested that the board drop the words “unsupervised, impersonal,” to save biology teachers the grief of having to defend them. The board voted down this proposal. Then, with only hours to spare, Scott persuaded the board to reverse itself. NABT director Wayne W. Carley said the change was good, honest science. “To say that evolution is unsupervised is to make a theological statement.”

No it’s not: it’s a statement of what we know about the process. We see no evidence that it’s supervised, and there could be evidence that it is supervised.  That evidence could include teleological forces behind evolution, pure directionality instead of responses to environmental contingencies, and a mutational process that is biased toward adaptive mutations.  But we have no such evidence.  The thought of Scott collaborating with the odious Alvin Plantinga to keep biology teachers from rejecting supernaturally-directed evolution makes my stomach turn.

The story continues:

But the vote came across in the popular press as scientists kowtowing to creationists, and thus began what Scott calls “l’affaire NABT.” A counter group of biologists disparaged her concern for public relations, insisting that indeed evolution is unsupervised and impersonal.

And so it is, just like every other physical process we know about.

Scott’s move was, of course, political. She and the NCSE have always maintained a NOMA-like stance that science can’t test or have any bearing on the supernatural, a stand that I find palpably false.  Of course science can test the supernatural, and I’ve posted on this many times (see here, for instance).  The reason that this false claim is pushed so hard by accommodationists like the NCSE is, of course, that if you say science and religion are completely separate areas, you don’t risk offending those believers whose faith is challenged by science. And that way you supposedly gain adherents, though that strategy hasn’t worked.

Scott has published or spoken about the theological import of “unguided evolution” many times. Here’s an example from a paper she wrote in 1996 (p. 518-519, reference below and pdf at link):

G. C. Simpson is regularly quoted with dismay by creationists as saying “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned.” A theist might respond that we do not know what God’s purpose is or what he planned. It is possible that if there is an omnipotent, omniscient deity, it was part of its plan to bring humans and every other species about precisely in what seems to us the rather zigzag, contingency-prone fashion that the fossil evidence suggests. Of course, this would be a theological statement, but that, indeed, is the point. Saying that “there is no purpose to life” is not a scientific statement. We are able to explain the world and its creatures using materialist, physical processes, but to claim that this then requires us to conclude that there is no purpose in nature steps beyond science into philosophy. One’s students may or may not come to this conclusion on their own; in my opinion, for a nonreligious professor to interject his own philosophy into the classroom in this manner is as offensive as it would be for a fundamentalist professor to pass off his philosophy as science. as science.

No, saying that we detect no purpose in evolution is simply a statement about reality. We detect no purpose in an ice cube’s melting at room temperature, either, but is it a theological statement to say that?  If not, then is saying that there are no small godlets occasionally igniting the gas in my car cylinder also a theological statement? And is the statement that the throw of a die is guided purely by physical forces also a theological assertion? (Elliott Sober apparently thinks that’s a theological—or at least a philosophical—asssertion.)  If we have to put disclaimers in every science class that “this mechanism appears purely natural, but of course we can’t absolutely rule out that it’s directed by God,” then we might as well stop doing science.

On pp. 518-519 of her piece, Scott makes the fallacious argument that science can’t touch or test the supernatural:

In dealing with hundreds of elementary and high-school teachers, I have found that the number of teachers that actually promote philosophical materialism along with evolution is vanishingly small. At the college level, it is more significant, but it is still not general. Vocal proponents of evolutionary materialism such as William Provine at Cornell, Paul Kurtz at the State University of New York, Buffalo, and Daniel Dennet at Tufts vigorously argue that Darwinism makes religion obsolete, and encourage their colleagues to argue likewise. Although I share a similar metaphysical position, I suggest that it is unwise for several reasons to promote this view as “the” scientific one.

First, science is a limited way of knowing, in which practitioners attempt to explain the natural world using natural explanations. By definition, science cannot consider supernatural explanations: if there is an omnipotent deity, there is no way that a scientist can exclude or include it in a research design. This is especially clear in experimental research: an omnipotent deity cannot be “controlled” (as one wag commented, “you can’t put God in a test tube, or keep him out of one.”). So by definition, if an individual is attempting to explain some aspect of the natural world using science, he or she must act as if there were no supernatural forces operating on it. I think this methodological materialism is well understood by evolutionists. But by excluding the supernatural from our scientific turf, we also are eliminating the possibility of proclaiming, via the epistemology of science, that there is no supernatural. One may come to a philosophical conclusion that there is no God, and even base this philosophical conclusion on one’s understanding of science, but it is ultimately a philosophical conclusion, not a scientific one. If science is limited to explaining the natural world using natural causes, and thus cannot admit supernatural explanations, so also is science self-limited in another way: it is unable to reject the possibility of the supernatural.

I am proud to proclaim, via the epistemology of science, that there is no Loch Ness Monster. There could have been one, and left evidence for its presence, but despite ardent searching we have no such evidence. As Victor Stenger notes, the absence of evidence is evidence for absence if that evidence should have been there.

Note that in the article Scott says this: “Although I share a similar metaphysical position, I suggest that it is unwise for several reasons to promote this view as ‘the’ scientific one.” In other words, she really does think that evolution is unguided, but won’t say that this is a scientific stand. Presumably, though, she has real empirical reasons to think that evolution is unguided, so that it’s not just Scott’s “theological position.”

What bothers me, then, is that Scott has affirmed this view in public, since she was one of the signers, along with Richard Dawkins, James Randi, and Kurt Vonnegut, of the Humanist Manifesto III (“Humanism and Its Aspirations“).  Among the tenets of this manifesto is—wait for it—the notion of unguided evolution! (My emphasis in section below.)

Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.

Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change.

I am baffled that somebody can affirm the notion that evolution is unguided in a public document, yet have that same view removed from a statement of the American Biology Teachers. It’s not because the notion of unguided evolution is a theological one, for the notion of unguided anything is a precept of science derived from experience. Rather, the removal occurred because the idea of unguided evolution offends religious people, and accommodationists want those people as our allies against creationism.

Well, I’m sorry, but I do not want Alvin Plantinga as my ally. For one thing, he has promoted Michael Behe’s idea of intelligent design. Nor do I want John Haught as my ally, for he thinks that behind evolution is a God pulling the strings—and making tea. That’s simply unscientific. Give me allies who favor pure, unsullied science, a science in which God isn’t directing things behind the scenes. For that, after all, is how things appear to be.

To those who disagree I say, “Sorry, but that’s the way things appear.” We have to live with unguided evolution, unpalatable as it may be to the faithful, in the same way we have to live with the unpalatable knowledge of our own mortality.

__________

Larson, E. J., and W. L. 1999. Scientists and religion in America. Scientific American, Sept.:88-93.

Scott, E. C. 1996. Creationism, ideology and science. Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 775:505-522.

UPDATE:  Over at Choice in Dying, Eric has written a very perspicacious piece on Tallmon’s article, concentrating on whether religion really does serve as a source of morality. A snippet:

Tallmon, sadly, is mistaken in practically every way in his attempt to reconcile religion and science. He thinks the world can be neatly divided into two different realms of knowing. No, it can’t.  Religious people are right to be afraid of science, because science, and empiricism or naturalism generally, are corrosive of religious belief. But the truth is that most people already know this. They already make moral decisions based on what makes life better, not on the basis of what a few men in dog collars or with long beards may say. And it really is time that we simply sidelined religion as a pastime for those who get a charge out of religious feelings and experiences.

____________

As per Arianna’s diktat, the HuffPo Science Section continues—with the refreshing exception of Victor Stenger—to push accommodationist pap when it isn’t extolling the latest discovery of fossilized dinosaur feces. (In fact these two genres are much alike.) The latest piece, “Teach the non-controversy,” is by David Tallmon, an associate professor of biology and marine biology at The University of Alaska Southeast.  In this call for the teaching of evolution in schools, while retaining our respect for believers, we find the usual tropes of the Kumbaya-NOMA crowd:

1. Blame Americans’ rejection of evolution on scientists.

Although this might seem a trivial point to some, I think we scientists have failed to teach the general public that falsifiable hypotheses lie at the core of science. One of the consequences of this failure is that we continue to waste time debating the role of evolutionary biology in public schools.

Yes, for if all those Christians understood that scientific hypotheses are actually tested, and that evolution has passed many such tests (see, for example, my fricking book), they’d immediately embrace Darwinism. Not!

2. Claim that science and faith can cohabit happily. After all, there are religious scientists!

Understanding evolution needn’t cause one to abandon one’s god, moral code, or respect for life. Many brilliant scientists have reconciled their spiritual beliefs, however fundamentalist or liberal, with evolutionary theory and have emerged both devout believers and insightful scientists. They seamlessly function in the spiritual and scientific worlds. One of the things I enjoy most as a teacher is seeing my senior biology students have an “aha” moment when they realize how much evolution makes sense as a mechanism to explain the diversity of life, and that they do not have to abandon their morals to appreciate its elegance.

I call this The Argument from Francis Collins. And I needn’t reprise the many reasons that it’s wrong, and why I see faith and science as incompatible; read my paper in Evolution if you’ve missed them. (By the way, could some kind reader with Wikipedia skills add that paper to my list of publications?)

Tallmon also conveniently omits the well known data on the greater prevalence of nonbelief among scientists than among the general public. In the elite U.S. National Academy of Sciences, for example, only 7% of members accept a personal God, with 93% being agnostics and atheists. In the U.S. general population, these figures are almost exactly reversed. And, of course, in our BioLogos post yesterday, president Darrel Falk noted that “Evangelicals are fourteen-fold under-represented among the scientists at the nation’s leading universities.”

For every brilliant scientist who accepts a personal God, there are more than thirteen who reject one. Doesn’t Tallmon wonder why that is? It is because we scientists simply haven’t taught people about hypothesis testing? LOL!

3. Argue that science and religion are nonoverlapping magisteria that address different topics. Ergo, Jesus and Darwin are pals.

We need to make sure the general public understands that science is about proposing testable mechanisms for how the natural world works. Let us teach evolution (and particle physics) in our science courses. Let us teach religion in our religion courses. Let there be no controversy; they address different topics. Science is a method of learning about the world that need not be threatening. To suggest otherwise is to add sound and fury that divert resources away from learning how the world works. Our students deserve better. Our society deserves better.

This, of course, neglects the very many religious people—not just evangelical Christians, but Jews, Catholics, Muslims, and Hindus as well—who do see religion as imparting genuine truths about the universe. I have a whole folder of statements by Sophisticated Theologians™ like John Haught, Alvin Plantinga, and John Polkinghorne, for instance, claiming that religion and science are both ways of apprehending real, empirical truths.

Let’s face it: Gould’s idea of “nonoverlapping magisteria” (NOMA) is dead in the water. No “person of good will” (Gould’s euphemism for accommodationists) thinks that religion has the corner on morality, as Gould claimed in Rocks of Ages. And who among us really thinks that religion refuses to make claims about the real world? Gould’s limitation of moral arguments to the domain of religion, and assertion that “real” religion says nothing about the real world, is a dichotomy that was palpably false from the outset. Yet it’s still being pushed by people like Tallmon.  Are they unaware of the weakness of their accommodationist arguments, or do they simply ignore them? Do they not see that accommodationism hasn’t worked at all, despite being the dominant strategy of the last forty years?

If Tallmon were honest, he’d see that the way to dispel creationism in America is not for scientists to do a better job imparting to the public how science works, but for scientists (and everyone else) to show the vacuity of unsupported superstition.

Victor, come out of the HuffPo woodwork and pwn this guy!