Home » Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science » Ted Davis — “The Theistic Evolutionists’ Theistic Evolutionist” — Rising above the fray

128 Responses to Ted Davis — “The Theistic Evolutionists’ Theistic Evolutionist” — Rising above the fray

1. 121

   scordovaApril 10, 2007 at 4:53 pm

   rblinne:

   One of the theological weaknesses of ID from a Reformed perspective …

   ID does not have to be premised on theology any more than the 2nd law of thermodynamics are premised on theology.

   The major reason ID’s relation to theology is even so seriously considered by Christians is that it is proper to weigh whether any idea is in conformance to the faith one professes. If there is a conflict, one can then decide if one will reject the faith or reject the idea at variance with one’s faith.

   But if one wishes to form a theological stamp of approval for the 2nd law of thermodynamics, that is fine. If the 2nd law passes doctrinal standards, then I suppose ID should be given a pass as well.

   However, a sceintific hypothesis is not a profession of faith. In fact, it is highly useful in mathematics to explore a hypothesis, assume it is true, in order to see if it is false. That is a classic Proof by Contradiction. When I speak of ID in the context of science, I offer it as a hypothesis.

   I may refer to ID in a theological context, but then, that is not formally the scientific formulation of the hypothesis, it is a personal view. If I say, “ID tells me God exists” that is a personal opinion, not a valid scientific formulation of what ID is. By way of comparison, I could say, “The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says the universe had a beginning, therefore something brought the universe into existence, therefore the universe has a creator, therefore the 2nd law suggests to me God exists.” That is an opinion about the 2nd law, it is not a scientific formulation of the 2nd law.

   The scientific formulation of ID theories are things like the 4th Law, LCI, displacent theorem, No Free Lunch, etc……

   “ID is the study of patterns that signify intelligence”. That is an awfully minimal hypothesis about artifacts in the physical world, and it’s hard to see how it could be construed as a theological statement any more than Newton’s approxmiation:

   F = ma

   Regarding the PCA’s position on ID:

   Report of the Creation Study Committee

   Thus, the church must be prepared to address the claimed “scientific truths” of the science communities and be prepared to “manage by fact” as the data from the science pours forth. The present day intelligent design movement would appear to be a good example of how the church in the broader evangelical context can be effective in this manner.

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2. 122

   dopderbeckApril 11, 2007 at 8:31 pm

   Here is a follow up comment Ted Davis wanted to post:

   I suppose if I’m going to be condescending (see comment #120), then at least I can do it amiably.
   That’s something good, isn’t it?

   Well, if I’m going to be soooo 1859 dad, let me at least play out the role.

   Mentok, do you have a clue about the context for my article about the Dover trial? Do you realize that the issues debated there were very, very serious issues about the future of ID and public education? The judge, quite properly, was looking for ways to tie the specific situation in Dover to existing, decades-old precedents prohibiting the teaching of “creationism” in schools. That’s what judges do: they look to apply existing case law to the specific case in front of them. The very capably argued case for the plaintiffs put all the dots onto the table, and all the judge had to do was connect them. (And never mind that he borrowed most of the words from the plaintiffs — judges do that all the time, as law professor David Opderbeck has explained in various places, it isn’t anything like plagiarism.) The defense did not adequately erase enough of those dots for the judge to have ruled differently, IMO. Nothing surprised me about his ruling, nothing at all, even though I dissented from parts of it.

   This context is really important for understanding my comments, mentok. What I did in that essay is to suggest that there may be a legally defensible way to discuss ID (and please note that “to discuss ID” is not at all the same as “teaching it as an alternative to evolution,” which I do not believe it has ever been) in public school science classes. That is, the judge’s ruling may have more wiggle room than the ACLU would like it to have, and if so it might be along the lines I suggested. I’m hardly in a position to render a legal opinion on my opinion — Mr Opderbeck and others would be qualified — but I have proposed something consistent with good secular educational pedagogy, and therefore is potentially legal, within existing case law — including the Dover case itself. That’s the bottom line, and I hardly think that constitutes condescension. It may well prove to be wrong, but at least it’s respectfully wrong.

   Let me add that I have given a public lecture partly (not entirely) based on this essay in several venues, and no one has responded in the way you have. The first time I did this was for the Forum on Science, Ethics & Policy, a postdoc and grad student led organization at the Univ of Washington in Seattle. Right in the heart of ID country, but obviously at a place that was not exactly friendly to ID. A place where some students had gone around defacing the poster advertising my lecture, called “Honest Talk about Intelligent Design,” by circling the title and my Messiah College affiliation and writing “Yeah, Right,” in big letters on the posters. An audience that (by a show of hands in response to my questions) was overwhelmingly biology students, faculty, and postdocs, with a good representation of philosophers as well. (I invited TDI to send representatives, but none came.) Some in the audience were clearly sceptical of some of my arguments and conclusions, but if anything they thought I was far too generous to ID. The strongest support for my talk, incidentally, came from Arthur Fine, a leading philosopher who knows Bill very well (Bill can fill you in if he wishes). I was more than pleased by that, esp given Fine’s professional stature and lack of religious convictions (to the best of my knowledge).

   Thus, mentok, I’d like to ask you a question. What precisely is condescending about my essay? The fact that I don’t think ID is really an alternative to evolution? The fact that I think it is unwise to piggyback cultural transformation on criticisms of evolutionary theory? Or something else?

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3. 123

   mentokApril 11, 2007 at 10:04 pm

   Ted I wasn’t only refering to the article you wrote on the Dover trial, I was refering to the other articles you gave links to as well. My take on your writings on ID is that you seem to believe that there are various problems with ID and the way it is presented. When you make your criticisms they come across like you are giving some parental advice on how ID is messing up and that your criticisms are obvious and true on the face of them. Since you mentioned the Dover article here is a bit you wrote

   Similarly, public school science teachers have a legitimate secular purpose in discussing various philosophical objections to aspects of evolution that have been raised by scientists in the 147 years since Darwin’s book was published. The general education of a science student is well served when such topics are introduced.

   Still, I cannot criticize the judge for overlooking this possibility, because the defense did not make a case for it. Rather, the defense kept insisting that ID is science, not philosophy of science, despite the near total lack of backing for that claim in the scientific literature.

   And also

   “Those who disagree with our holding,” Jones wrote near the end of his opinion, “will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge.” I make no such accusation, but The Discovery Institute did not hesitate. Hardly had the decision been issued than John West, a politics professor at Seattle Pacific University who is also a long-time fellow of the institute, offered the following response on the institute’s webpage ( http://www.discovery.org ):

   “Judge Jones found that the Dover board violated the Establishment Clause because it acted from religious motives. That should have been the end to the case. Instead, Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur.”

   Someone may be deluded here, but I doubt it is the judge.

   Also

   It is not a strength of ID that it avoids offering a grand narrative. As the late Thomas Kuhn argued, scientists do not abandon an existing paradigm unless or until they see a better paradigm out there to embrace. I am convinced that, without such a paradigm, ID will never be regarded as science, not even bad science, by the scientific community.

   But in order for ID to provide a plausible alternative to evolution, its proponents would have to address the one issue they least want to face: the age of the earth and the universe. Their refusal to discuss this issue directly and publicly has less to do with science than with movement politics.

   Currently, the ID movement is, to use its own language, a “big tent” under whose sprawling canvas there is plenty of room for differences of opinion about theological and biblical issues related to the age of the earth. A full public discussion of these issues would not disturb most of the intellectual leaders of the movement. But it would alienate the many grass-roots creationists who support ID – and who provide it with much of its political support. So while ID is not creationism, creationism remains the elephant in the room. Judge Jones evidently smelled the elephant quite distinctly.

   From one of the other articles

   A principal goal of the ID movement is to convince working scientists that information cannot and does not spring from matter, which they understand as brute and inert. This is essentially the same dualistic conception of matter that was shared by the founders of mechanistic science in the seventeenth century, such as René Descartes, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton. However, although the mind/matter distinction remains philosophically problematic and some types of dualism may be possible to defend, most contemporary scientists (including most Christian scientists) no longer hold to this type of dualism, even if they retain the mechanistic science it was once linked with. The same is true of many contemporary theologians, especially those committed to panentheism and/or process theology. They generally hold a more active view of matter and its capabilities, either that matter itself can think or at least that cognition arises out of it in some naturalistic manner yet to be determined. This is one important reason why adherents of the ID program are facing an uphill climb. They don�t really confront the fact that the philosophical landscape has changed, and they fail to engage those Christian thinkers who recognize this.

   I take those as condescending remarks and illustrative of your general mood of writing about ID.

   Also you sprinkle your articles with erroneous information that you try to pass off as obvious and true.

   At this point, there simply is no ID “theory” to teach – or even to practice in the laboratory, let alone to place at the center of a new scientific paradigm. ID currently consists only of an interesting philosophical critique of the explanatory efficacy of Darwinian evolution, combined with an appeal for scientists to add “design” to the set of explanatory principles they employ in biology and other sciences.

   Your claim that there is no ID theory to teach is mistaken as is your claim that ID is nothing more then a philosophical critique of neo-darwinism. Consider that if I make a valid scientific criticism that attempts to refute a basic assumptions made by neo-darwinists about some aspect of evolutionary theory then that is categorized by you as a “philosophical criticism”, but if a neo-darwinist makes a scientific critique of and attempts to refute a basic assumption of ID then that is “science”. To me that smacks of your overall attitude towards ID and evolution. From your writings it appears to me that you see yourself as the reasonable openminded well educated and rational adult trying to point out the obvious about the ID crowd.

   I don’t have a problem with everything you write, I don’t see all of it as condescending. Nor is it all unobjectionable to me, in fact I find you have some good ideas, but alas they have been put forth by countless others so I don’t see them as original thoughts or ideas. I can appreciate that you seem to be motivated in this debate by your evangelizing agenda and therefore may want to come across as the “reasonable rational christian” so that your religious agenda is not hampered by being tarred with the ID brush. Or maybe I am wrong and you really believe that ID is wrong and that you want to enlighten people to that fact for philanthropic reasons.

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4. 124

   dopderbeckApril 12, 2007 at 2:54 pm

   Further response from Ted Davis:

   This is a response to some of mentok’s points in comment #123.

   Let me start by thanking you, mentok, for reading the essays I linked. And for reading them carefully, so that our points of disagreement are clear. When I stated my points of disagreement with ID, you see some of them as somewhat condescending b/c they are stated with authority, as if there were no other views on this topic worth considering. Is that a fair representation of your point? (I’m putting words into your mouth and if they aren’t right I hope you’ll correct me.)

   Assuming this is a correct understanding, then this would be my reply. I write with conviction when I write — at least I try to, when I have a conviction (which isn’t always). But lots of people do that, including most of the leading advocates of ID — especially when they write for opinion magazines, which is what my essays about ID were published in. Isn’t this true? Is my tone significantly different in this respect than that of (say) Philip Johnson or Bill Dembski? Do you see them as condescending, when they clearly and directly state their considered opinions about evolution or science education?

   Speaking for myself, I don’t usually see it as condescending when I read another writer who also has conviction but whose views differ significantly from my own. Sometimes, to be sure, writers can be condescending (including ID authors), and I can do that too if I’m really annoyed — when ( e.g.) I think that someone is simply being unfair, or dishonest, or condescending for that matter. But nearly all of what I wrote in those essays, I assure you, was not intended on my end to come across as condescending. That is, it wasn’t intended to get under the skin of someone who disagrees with me. It was intended to convey, clearly and with conviction, views I have come to after expending a lot of time and energy thinking and reading about the issues.

   And, in some places, I intended to convey implicit advice about how to approach the whole ball of wax, or certain parts of the ball. You were bothered by some of this, but perhaps that is mainly b/c you don’t agree with the advice. When Phil, Bill, and others criticize mainstream science, they often offer advice about what should be done. They are Christian scholars, opining on matters of importance to which they have devoted much study; the only difference in my case is the content of the opinions.

   Let me propose a thought experiment, and you can take it as a rhetorical question to which no actual reply is needed. Please reread any parts of those essays where you agree with what I am saying, esp where you strongly agree if that applies. I do say some things that are quite critical of “the other side,” and I am guessing you might agree with me. Do my comments come across there as condescending, or do you tend to say, “yes, you’re right, I’m glad you said that”? If you also find them condescending, then maybe there is a problem with my style since that is not what I want to convey. If not, then maybe it’s simply that you don’t agree, and you’d prefer that I be less convicted myself.

   Turning to another of your points, let me respond to this one:

   “Also you sprinkle your articles with erroneous information that you try to pass off as obvious and true.”

   [Here you insert a paragraph from my article on the Dover trial, as follows:
   At this point, there simply is no ID "theory" to teach - or even to practice in the laboratory, let alone to place at the center of a new scientific paradigm. ID currently consists only of an interesting philosophical critique of the explanatory efficacy of Darwinian evolution, combined with an appeal for scientists to add "design" to the set of explanatory principles they employ in biology and other sciences. ]

   Your claim that there is no ID theory to teach is mistaken as is your claim that ID is nothing more then a philosophical critique of neo-darwinism.

   The paragraph you are responding to here, mentok, was written shortly after a long phone call to a leading ID advocate. You would instantly know the name — and no, it isn’t Bill Dembski. I asked this person, point blank, whether there is presently an ID theory to teach as an alternative to evolution. I stated my view, made it clear that I was writing something, and wanted a frank evaluation of my view: was this a fair point? The words in the paragraph are mine, but they convey a view that is also shared by more than one prominent ID advocate. I doubt you will see this in published ID writings, but I didn’t simply invent this as a cheap shot: I believe it is accurate, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t out to lunch on my own — especially not a free lunch, if you will allow me a further joke.

   As for my “passing it off as obvious and true,” I think it is much fairer to say this: readers will take it as obvious and true that this is my opinion. I stated my reasons clearly, based on my prior opinion that Thomas Kuhn’s opinion about paradigm changes is correct. My language here is, “I am convinced that, ….” Wouldn’t you agree that most readers will understand me as stating a considered opinion, not an obvious fact?

   If you want to take issue with Kuhn’s opinion (many people do on various points), or how I am applying his opinion to ID, that’s all well and good.

   I should also point out something else, which goes beyond what I wrote in the limited space I was allotted in the magazine, but which is one of the reasons I emphasized this “philosophy of science, not science” thing. At the Arkansas creationism trial, the late Judge Overton ruled in effect that science is what scientists do; since scientists don’t do creationism — you don’t find creationism in the professional literature — then creationism isn’t science. That’s a sociological definition of science, obviously, and one might take issue with it, but the point remains that it shaped one of the precedents that Judge Jones had to work with. This is partly what I was thinking of, when I wrote, “Rather, the defense kept insisting that ID is science, not philosophy of science, despite the near total lack of backing for that claim in the scientific literature.” This is at the end of an example you offered of my talking down to people. In this case, I agree: I was more than a little annoyed by that particular piece of courtroom strategy, and I was talking down to the defense attorneys. Nearly all of the refereed literature advocating ID falls into or near philosophy of science, not science per se. That’s a fact, not an opinion — unless you take it as an opinion, not a fact, that philosophy of science is not science per se. Several examples of such literature were noted on the record by both sides in the trial, but the defense kept playing the “ID is science” card, despite the likelihood that it was going to be much harder to convince a neutral observer of this. The strategy I suggest in the article would have been much better, IMO; it would have stood a much better chance of making a secular case for teachers discussing aspects of ID in science classes. But most ID advocates think I’m wrong about this (and so do you), and Richard Thompson (lead counsel for the defense) agrees with them more than with me. Consequently, he passed on the one potentially winning hand available to him, IMO — I’m quite sure it had at least crossed his mind, however briefly it may have been.

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5. 125

   mentokApril 12, 2007 at 4:21 pm

   Ted for me the difference between condescending and non condescending criticism when it comes to intricate science related issues is that non condescending critique should be in-depth, without resort to formal or informal fallacies of some type, which doesn’t present a single viewpoint as representative of the majority, and which is objective in that one’s own personal biases or agenda is not what is trying to be presented as the correct vision regardless of where the evidence leads. In other words critique should be more then just an attempt at shallow showmanship in order to gain or prove oneself worthy of respect.

   As for the claim that there is no theory of ID, that all ID in literature fall under “philosophy of science” etc. We will just have to agree to disagree. Both neo-darwinism and ID are postulating causes for the agreed upon effects. They are sharing the same bank of scientific research and data and methodology. ID proponents make the claim that matter alone, without purpose or plan, cannot account for the effects seen and therefore a more competent cause is required. Neo-darwinists make the claim that matter alone is a competent cause for the effects seen by all and that no other cause is needed or even allowed to be considered. Why should the outlook which does not limit the type of causation which can be considered be labled as religion or philosophy, while the other outlook which does restrict and confine causation to a priori subjective philosophical parameters be labled as science? They are both using the same data and the same methods of interpreting that data yet have different conclusions on what that data implies. Beyond that there is no more reproducable proof of evolution then there is for ID. If ID is not science then neo-darwinism certainly isn’t. If neo-darwinism is a bonafide science with something to teach then so is ID, they differ only in what is acceptable to be considered as plausible cause. Which is acting more in the spirit of unbiased objectivity when it comes to science research?

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6. 126

   dopderbeckApril 13, 2007 at 9:19 am

   More from Ted Davis:

   Mentok writes:

   “Ted for me the difference between condescending and non condescending criticism when it comes to intricate science related issues is that non condescending critique should be in-depth, without resort to formal or informal fallacies of some type, which doesn’t present a single viewpoint as representative of the majority, and which is objective in that one’s own personal biases or agenda is not what is trying to be presented as the correct vision regardless of where the evidence leads. In other words critique should be more then just an attempt at shallow showmanship in order to gain or prove oneself worthy of respect.”

   That’s a very clear definition, mentok, even if it is not the one that I would give. If this is what it means to be condescending, then I could fill this blog with condescending passages from ID advocates (leaving aside their critics, who would be equally guilty). But I won’t condescend to do that. I’ll simply note in passing that the parts of my essays that you identified as condescending, were not the parts in which I was commenting on some of those critics. The little thought experiment suggested above might perhaps be carried out.

   We’ve been talking about some of the things I said. Now, I’d like to turn the tables, mentok. Let’s talk about something you said, in comment #37, responding to Rich Blinne: “That’s a pretty strong statement especially when considering the fact that the ‘proof’ is nothing more then conjecture based upon homology and or pure speculation. The evidence for common descent can also be used as proof of common design, therefore it is not ‘proof’ of anything except of dishonesty in claiming that there is proof. Common descent is unprovable even if it was true. Why? Because actual proof would require a time machine.”

   I sense that this particular type of objection to evolution (and also to modern geology, though you did not comment directly on that) is widely held. I think it relates closely to the distinction that YECs have made for decades, between what are sometimes called “origins science” and “observational science” or “empirical science.” In the abstract, I think it’s a legitimate distinction to draw. The late Ernst Mayr gets at it from a very different angle in his last book, What Makes Biology Unique? But Mayr and most other scientists never push it nearly as hard as the creationists do, obviously. And, in the abstract, I would go even further than you went; I would say, in a very theoretical way, that ultimately there is no valid inductive logic that will provide us with incontrovertible “proof” of anything at all. But that’s not the sense in which scientists typically talk about “proof”; the sort of certainty implied here is for mathematicians and logicians, not scientists or engineers or physicians.

   I recently wrote an essay (in process of publication) called “Galileo and the Garden of Eden: Historical Reflections on Creationist Hermeneutics,” in which I talk about the significance of this distinction in YEC thinking. It’s absolutely crucial in creationist hermeneutics, I concluded, for keeping Galileo’s figurative approach to astronomical texts in the Bible from being applied to the early parts of Genesis. In other words, you need to push this type of distinction very hard in order keep Galileo out of the garden of Eden.

   I have a growing sense that it is also crucial to ID — not necessarily to ID as it proclaims itself to be, but ID as it is actually practiced — and I’d like to hear what you think about this opinion. Right or wrong? Is it crucial to ID to deny the legitimacy of the so-called historical sciences?

   Let me take this further now. The paper I mention above focuses mostly on astronomy, specifically on the solar system and how two contemporary groups of YECs (geocentrists and heliocentrists) respond to Copernicanism. Evolution comes in only near the end, when I draw some larger conclusions. In teaching about Galileo and Copernicus, something that it seems I’m always doing, I often think about how the geocentrists justify their rejection of a moving earth. (To see some of their materials, just google “geocentrism” or “geocentricity,” and you’ll find more than you need or want.) The bottom line, theologically, is that they simply reject the principle of accommodation, not only as used by Galileo but even as used by John Calvin (and Calvin actually used it far more than Galileo), who wasn’t even a heliocentrist as far as we know. The bottom line, philosophically and scientifically, is that they just do not regard heliocentrism as a “fact.” In looking at all the kinds of evidence they do not accept as conclusive (you name it, they don’t accept it), it seems to boil down to this: no one has ever gone above the plane of the solar system for a few years, looked “down” on it, and watched the earth and the other planets orbit the sun. Short of that type of direct observation, the earth’s motion just is not to be accepted as a “fact.” True, they offer some sophisticated answers too, based on the relativity of motion and the absolute authority of the Bible (as they interpret it), but the empirical arguments boil down to what I just stated.

   I am struck by the similarity to the type of comment you made that I quote above. Unless I have misunderstood you, you seem to be saying that we just can’t have any real science of the fossil record, b/c we did not and can not observe directly just what took place. Am I understanding you correctly, mentok? If not, please tell me what I am missing.

   On the other hand, if I correctly understand your point, then I would like to hear any comments you may have about what I have said here, concerning the similarity of attitude that I find between the modern geocentrists, who do not regard the earth’s motion as a “fact,” and the attitude you expressed concerning our inability to “prove” anything about the history of biological types.

   I might or might not want to respond, but I very much want to listen.

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7. 127

   mentokApril 13, 2007 at 4:30 pm

   Ted I think the comparison between the so called lack of “proof” for heliocentrism is categorically different from the so called proof of common descent. With heliocentrism we can make direct observations and then calculations based upon those observations without having to be outside the solar system. With common descent we can make no observations of common descent therefore all calculations are based upon evidence which is ambiguous at best and self contradictory or specious at worst. For example you mention the fossil record as an example of indirect proof of common descent when in fact the fossil record is contradictory to common descent for numerous reasons e.g. cambrian explosion where all the phyla appear without any sign of common descent, no true transitional fossils (fossils of animals showing the various stages of the development of new limbs and organs), no competent mechanisms which can account for the development of specified complexity i.e competent mechanism which can cause a flightless animal to develop wings, etc. There are also many other genetic and molecular problems with common descent but those problems can be overlooked if one accepts common descent with ID. Without ID common descent not only lacks any real indirect evidence but confronts contradiction after contradiction from every angle.

   So I think your proposition is a false analogy because you are comparing a worldview that is trying to prove a specific unique theological point of view with ID which is trying to promote and objective (honest) appraisal of the evidence which is not guided by an enforced bias by creating a priori restraining paremeters on where the data can lead.

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8. 128

   mentokApril 13, 2007 at 6:56 pm

   I didn’t mean to come across as putting neo-darwinian common descent in the same category as modern geocentrism. Neo-darwinian common descent has no support from the evidence and is contradicted by pretty much all of the evidence. Whereas mordern geocentrism (geocentricity) can hold it’s own with modern heliocentrism. Interestingly the ancient hindu cosmological schema is almost identical to the modern geocentricity theory. The only major difference that I could see from a quick perusal of the writings of the leading geocentricity theorists is that in the Puranic accounts of the cosmos there are a great many universe bubbles within an infinite godhead, each with a geocentric cosmology, whereas in the biblically based geocentric theory there appears to be only one universe bubble (our own) within an infinite godhead.

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