Luke A. Corwin
SLAC, Ohio State University Office
2575 Sand Hill Road, Mail Stop 35
Menlo Park, CA 94025-7015
corwin.54@osu.edu
2006 May 19
Focus on the Family
P.O. Box 16158
Colorado Springs, CO 80935-9868
Dear President Daly, Mr. Matt Kaufman, and the Editors of Boundless:
Thank you for your reply to my previous letter, which was assigned incident number 050929-000444. I have decided to use your invitation to “keep in touch” as an opportunity to offer my perspective on the recent article “The Darwinist’s Blinders” by Matt Kaufman that was published on the Boundless website earlier this year. I am sure you have already received a high volume of correspondence about this article, and I hope mine will not be lost in the flood.
My perspective on Intelligent Design (ID), the main topic of Mr. Kaufman’s article, is informed primarily by my Christian faith and my vocation. I am a third-year graduate student at The Ohio State University (Ohio State) pursuing a Ph.D. in Particle Physics. My return address is in California because I am part of the Ohio State group working on the BaBar experiment, which is located at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California. This letter expresses my personal opinions, not necessarily those of Ohio State, SLAC, or their employees.
The controversies spawned by the ID movement seem to coalesce around three questions. First, is ID right; in other words, is it the correct explanation for the origin and diversity of life on Earth? Second, is ID a legitimate scientific hypothesis? Third, should ID be taught in public school science classes? In this letter, I wish to focus on science and the current controversies surrounding ID, so I will not address the first question directly.
The first and second questions are independent of each other; whether a hypothesis is scientific has no bearing on whether it is true, and vice versa. When judging whether something is scientific, a good place to begin is the definition of science. The most applicable dictionary definition of science in this context is “knowledge obtained and tested through use of the scientific method.” The scientific method is defined as
the principles and procedures used in the systematic pursuit of intersubjectively accessible knowledge and involving as necessary conditions the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and if possible experiment, the formulation of hypotheses, and the testing and confirmation of the hypotheses formulated.
A claim, such as “Star Trek is the greatest television series of all time,” can be true (in my opinion) but completely unscientific. A hypothesis, such as “brown cows give chocolate milk,” can be scientific but completely wrong.
The hypothesis of brown cows giving chocolate milk is scientific because it can be easily tested with the nearest brown dairy cow. However, each person has his or her own standards of quality for art, so the greatness of any given television series is subjective and thus not experimentally or observationally testable. These definitions, examples, and the assumptions implicit in them demonstrate important limitations and restrictions on what science alone can reveal about our Universe; I will discuss those in more detail later.
Regarding the third question, Mr. Kaufman claimed that “Darwinists are freaking out at the prospect” of having ID “arguments taught in school.” Actually, I know of few people in the scientific community who would forbid the teaching of ID in all public school classes. Most scientists, including Prof. Mirecki, object only to ID being “taught in a science class” (emphasis mine).
My answers to these questions were mostly formed by my exposure to literature and lectures by professionals advocating for and against ID. I will organize my answers around the three lectures that have been most important in forming my opinion of ID. The first was given by Dr. Hugh Ross at Ohio State. Ohio State Astronomy Prof. Marc Pinsonneault gave a rebuttal lecture a few weeks later. The third lecture was given at SLAC by physics Prof. Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University.
To answer the question of whether ID is a legitimate scientific hypothesis, I will begin with Dr. Ross. He is an astrophysicist and founder of Reasons to Believe. He does not advocate ID, but his arguments against biological evolution are very similar to those used by the ID movement. He visited Ohio State as part of a Veritas Forum. I was informed by the leaders of the InterVarsity Graduate Christian Fellowship at Ohio State that Dr. Ross would be willing to give a lecture in the Physics or Astronomy Department on “Astronomical Evidence for the Existence of God.” After prayer and consultation with my fellow Christian physics graduate students, I began contacting the appropriate officials within the department to arrange the lecture. The Physics Graduate Student Council (PGSC), which is body of six graduate students elected by their peers, and the undergraduate Society of Physics Students (SPS) both agreed to sponsor it.
When Dr. Ross gave his lecture, it was heavily attended. Inside the seminar room, every seat was filled and people were standing along the walls; outside, people were packed around the doors. The form and content of the lecture were both a disappointment. Dr. Ross based many of his arguments on quotations rather than data. He used units, such as teaspoons, that were radically inappropriate for a technical audience. He reused many of his slides from a talk he would later give to a general audience. The PGSC responded with and e-mail statement that read in part, “[we] and the SPS were under the impression that this was to be a talk for physicists. This was, obviously, our misunderstanding. We believe that it would have been good to have a more technical debate and that is what we were hoping for.”
The misunderstanding was mine, not theirs. Before the lecture, I had been assured by the local representative for Dr. Ross that this lecture would be appropriate for an audience of professional physicists and astronomers. Instead the PGSC compared Dr. Ross to conference speakers who “give talks which no one else agrees with. This does not make the conference look bad, it simply makes the speaker look like they do not understand science.”
I learned of Dr. Ross’ opposition to ID long after this lecture. During the lecture, I and most of the audience thought he was arguing for ID. As the title of his talk indicates, Prof. Pinsonneault also believed Dr. Ross was arguing for ID. In fact, Dr. Ross claims that ID is less scientific than the position his organization holds. If anyone in the audience was aware of this, their opinion of ID was probably damaged even further than the response from the PGSC indicates. In either case, Dr. Ross probably gave the impression that leading ID advocates do not understand science and are unable or unwilling to craft arguments or find evidence that would convince scientists. This lecture did more than any “hard-core Darwinist” ever could to damage my opinion of ID.
The PGSC offered to sponsor a rebuttal talk, which became the lecture given by Prof. Pinsonneault. Though his lecture drew a smaller audience, it was superior in almost every way to Dr. Ross’s. His language and style were far more appropriate for a professional audience. He used far more data that Dr. Ross, and he systematically dismantled many arguments used by Dr. Ross and ID advocates.
Both Prof. Pinsonneault and Prof. Krauss rebutted the claim that ID is testable, which is one of the necessary conditions of scientific hypotheses in the definition above. Dr. William A. Dembski, who literally wrote the book on ID, confirmed that “it is a hallmark of science that any of its claims be open to criticism and subject to revision or refutation on the basis of new evidence or further theoretical insight. Science is therefore testable if by testable one means sensitive to new evidence and to further theoretical insight.” While this definition of testability is less rigorous than what most scientists would use, it is sufficient for the purposes of this letter.
A previous Boundless article referred to specified (or irreducible) complexity, which is a test proposed by Dr. Dembski for ID. In that article, Prof. Scott Minnich of the University of Idaho discussed applying this test to the bacterial flagellum. He asserted that mutations “in any single gene knock out function or in lesser cases diminish function…So, to swim you have to have the full complement of genes. There are no intermediate steps.” Sir Charles Darwin foresaw tests like this when he wrote, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not have possibly been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”
The validity and nature of this and similar tests were discussed at length in the recent Kitzmiller court case in Dover, PA. Judge John E. Jones III found that “it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.” To preempt any accusations of liberal bias, judicial activism, or legislating from the bench, note that Judge Jones was appointed by President George W. Bush. I am quite surprised that Mr. Kaufman did not mention this important case in his article. Since this decision examines ID and the nature of science so thoroughly and affects the legal landscape surrounding them so much, I suggest that it be made required reading for anyone at Focus on the Family or elsewhere who intends to write about ID.
Judge Jones recognized a subtle but very important distinction between tests of evolution and tests of ID. Specified complexity would only disprove evolution; it would not prove ID or any other scientific or unscientific hypothesis. Proving that a given structure could not have been produced by natural selection would only eliminate that hypothesis; it would not yield proof of a designer. During the course of the trial, Prof. Minnich conceded that “Irreducible complexity is a negative argument against evolution, not proof of design.”
Prof. Michael Behe, who Boundless has acknowledged, as a leading ID advocate, gave further testimony casting doubt upon the testability of ID.
Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not “good enough.”
By rejecting the pile of evidence and research in front of him, Prof. Behe demonstrated that, at least in his formulation, ID violates Dr. Dembski’s definition of testability because it is profoundly insensitive to new evidence and further theoretical insight. Unless and until ID advocates suggest tests that could verify or falsify ID and to which ID is actually sensitive, I will continue to be forced to the conclusion that ID is not science.
To give my answer to the question of whether ID should be taught in public school science classes, I must first address a few additional fundamental issues, such as accusations of atheistic bias in science, conflicts between science and Christianity, the alleged evolution lobby, and the generally accepted procedure by which scientific theories arrive in public school science classrooms. I will address them in the order that I have mentioned them.
As Mr. Kaufman makes clear in his article, the real objection that he and many Christians raise against teaching evolution (or even science as a whole) does not come from ID or the debate surrounding it. They object to the perceived militant atheism of scientists, especially evolutionary biologists. “Darwinists,” Mr. Kaufman claims, are “utterly narrow-minded on the most important matters” and are driven “to deny God’s handiwork.”
To support his accusations, Mr. Kaufman quotes religious studies Prof. Paul Mirecki and Harvard geneticist Dr. Richard Lewontin. I find the choice of the former source perplexing. While the statements made by Prof. Mirecki are extremely inflammatory, insulting, and accurately described as “repugnant and vile,” he is neither a biologist nor any other kind of natural scientist. According to his website, he is an expert in ancient cultures, languages and religions, not evolution. Why did Mr. Kaufman give Prof. Mirecki such prominence? Did he intend to imply that Prof. Mirecki represents a community (natural scientists) of which he is not a member?
Dr. Lewontin wants the general public to “reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world.” I think Mr. Kaufman rejects many of the same irrational and supernatural explanations of the world that scientists, including Dr. Lewontin, reject. Astrology, worship of the sun, triskaidekaphobia, and carrying rabbits’ feet for good luck are all contradictory to modern scientific understanding and Christian theology.
Dr. Lewontin also wants us to accept science “as the only begetter of truth” and accept his view that “materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” I am grieved and embarrassed by statements such as this. They are not only an affront to Christian faith; they are well beyond the claims allowed by science. As Prof. Pinsonneault repeatedly emphasized in his lecture, science is a powerful tool for answering a limited set of questions. Prof. Krauss agreed that “it is absolutely true that science has limitations on the areas it can study.”
The ultimate limits of science are largely set by two assumptions it makes. Mr. Kaufman correctly asserts that pure reason cannot prove or disprove these assumptions. First, science assumes that the Universe is understandable to the human mind. Second, in order for experiment and observations to collect meaningful and consistent data with which to test hypotheses, the Universe must operate according to laws that are consistent through all space and time. We make this assumption implicitly with every step we take. We assume that every time we lift a foot off the ground, gravity will pull it back toward Earth with the same force as the previous step. I think these assumptions should be clearly stated and taught in all public school science classes.
Mr. Kaufman characterizes the first assumption as the conceited notion that the minds of scientists “can discern the secrets of the universe.” Conceited or not, the past few centuries have witnessed scientists discerning many secrets of the Universe. These secrets, and inventions derived from them, are all around us. Vaccines, disinfectants, radio, rocketry, superconductors, electricity, and the microchip form a short list of notable examples. Ironically, without combining some of these discoveries and inventions with the World Wide Web, which was invented by particle physicists while in pursuit of more secrets of the Universe, Mr. Kaufman’s article would not exist.
Personally, I believe that the assumptions of science are supported by Scripture. Psalm 111:2 celebrates the study of the great works of the Lord. If God had not given us the ability to understand his works, why would he direct us to study them? The second assumption can be seen in Jeremiah 33:25 when the Lord assures his people that that day, night, Heaven, and Earth all obey the “ordinances” and “fixed laws” he has established for them.
God reserves the right to break these assumptions by performing miracles. Scientists are wrong to deny the possibility of miracles simply because science assumes they cannot happen. We cannot perform experiments that would confirm the resurrection of Christ, but I still believe it happened.
Rather than being inherently atheistic, science is a “discipline in which testability…[is] the measure of a scientific idea’s worth. In deliberately omitting theological or ‘ultimate’ explanations for the existence or characteristics of the natural world, science does not consider issues of ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ in the world.” Atheism and theism are beyond the proper jurisdiction of science. Whenever scientists assert that science answers questions beyond its jurisdiction, they are being “counterproductive,” as Prof. Pinsonneault diplomatically said in his lecture. Prof. Krauss bluntly wrote, “the moment that scientists attempt to prove or disprove the existence of God, or divine purpose, they have stopped being scientists.”
The validity and perceived atheism of evolutionary theory were famously addressed by Pope John Paul II, whom Boundless has favorably quoted, on other issues of biology and ethics. He addressed them in a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Today…some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.
The late Pope went on to remind his audience of the limits of science. While “materialist and reductionist theories, as well as spiritualist theories” of evolution exist, judging between them is only “within the competence of philosophy and, beyond that, of theology.” In other words, no scientist can legitimately claim that evolution is inherently theistic or atheistic. “The sciences of observation describe and measure, with ever greater precision, the many manifestations of life, and write them down along the time-line. The moment of passage into the spiritual realm is not something that can be observed in this way[.]” The spiritual nature of humanity is beyond the ability of science to detect or refute.
In discussions among scientists, presentations from scientists to each other, and in discussions between scientists and the general public, I have noticed that the ID debate has prompted an increased emphasis on the true limits, nature, methodology, and assumptions of science. In my opinion, this is the greatest benefit the ID movement has produced, but that does not mean it should be taught as science.
Not only does Mr. Kaufman assert that evolutionary theory is inherently atheistic, he accuses scientists of corrupting their data and results of fit their worldview. Specifically, he accuses cosmologists, physicists, geologists and others of claiming that the Universe is “many millions of years old” only “because, with no Designer, it takes a really long time” for evolution to work. In truth, the evidence for our Universe being billions (not millions) of years old is derived from radiometric dating, cosmological measurements, and other observations that are totally independent of biological evolution. To claim that scientists have asserted this age for the Universe with no evidence based on a philosophical bias is incorrect and libelous.
Accusations of bias ignore, as Prof. Krauss potently reminded us, a few basic facts about scientists. Most scientists are striving to discover something new or disprove something well-established. One of my physics professors at Ohio State told me that if he could disprove evolution, he would be glad to because that would be one of the greatest discoveries in scientific history. In the words of another Boundless article, if ID were accepted within the scientific community, “the consequences could be revolutionary.” Those who are proven correct by scientific revolutions receive great honors (e.g. the Nobel Prize) and sometimes even have their names in the history books. Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Planck and Darwin are a few examples. Scientific revolutions usually encounter great resistance, but the incentives for winning a revolution are even greater.
Prof. Krauss did not say that science and religion each have their “own designated territory,” as Mr. Kaufman might have predicted. He admitted that science and certain theological claims do conflict. The most popular conflict is between science, which claims that Earth is billions of years old, and young-Earth Creationism, which claims that Earth is a few thousand years old. Also, the heliocentric model of the Solar System supported by science conflicts with any religious attempt to place Earth back at the center of the Solar System.
Mr. Kaufman hyperlinked the word Creationists to the website of Answers in Genesis, a group which strongly advocates young-Earth Creationism. His exact opinion of Earth’s age is unstated. How old do Mr. Kaufman, Boundless, and Focus on the Family believe Earth and the Universe are? As I mentioned above, the scientific evidence against Earth being a few thousand years old is overwhelming and is derived from multiple sources. I do not wish to digress further into this issue here, but I direct my readers to a Biblical argument against young-Earth Creationism written by Boundless contributor Dr. J. P. Moreland.
With his derogatory mention of the alleged “evolution lobby,” Mr. Kaufmann implied that evolution has been placed in public school science classes because of its public relations campaign rather than its scientific merit. He failed to mention the ID lobby. Prof. Krauss took part in a debate on ID during which he realized that he “was competing with a well-organised marketing machine.” The Discovery Institute, “a major force in the intelligent design movement,” hired the public relations firm Creative Response Concepts to do their lobbying. What firms has the evolution lobby hired? If this evolution lobby exists, the disparity between the perceptions of evolution by scientists and the general public, which I will delineate in the following paragraphs, seems to show that the ID lobby has been much more effective.
Prof. Krauss also gave a brief outline of how a scientific theory normally arrives in a public school science classroom.
Scientific ideas that have become sufficiently mainstream to be taught in high school have survived a gauntlet of stringent tests. The first takes place when proposals are published in peer-reviewed journals, often resulting in severe criticisms that must be addressed. After publication, the proposals must be compelling enough to prompt exploration by other researchers. If they survive perhaps 20 years of testing against evidence, they may make it into high-school texts.
If ID is to be legitimately taught in public school science classrooms, it should have passed these stringent tests, but it has not passed the first test of publication in peer-reviewed journals. An electronic survey found that, of the more than 10 million articles that appeared in more than 20 major scientific journals between 1990 and 2002, 115,000 contained the word “evolution,” but only three contained the phrase “Intelligent design.”
On the witness stand, Prof. Behe admitted that there “are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred.” He also admitted that no peer-reviewed articles exist to support “his claims that complex molecular systems…were intelligently designed” or his “argument that certain complex molecular structures are ‘irreducibly complex.’” Judge Jones found that “ID also features no scientific research or testing,” which indicates that ID advocates are not trying to pass the tests that have been passed by every scientific hypothesis currently in public school text books and classrooms.
The articles cited and hyperlinked by Mr. Kaufman also implicitly or explicitly acknowledge that ID has little credibility within the scientific community. By writing that “[s]ooner or later” the notions supporting biological evolution “will collapse under the weight of evidence,” Mr. Mark Hartwig implicitly acknowledged that the collapse has not happened. After claiming that ID has merely established “a beachhead” in mainstream culture, he acknowledged, under the section entitled “Vive la revolution,” that “intelligent design still has a long way to go before it’s generally accepted.”
ID should not be taught in public school science classes unless and until it has passed the stringent tests that Prof. Krauss delineated. In other words, ID should not be taught as science until it has been generally accepted by the scientific community and “la revolution” has been won. The revolution should be fought by scientists convincing their peers through experiment, observation, research, and testing that ID is the best scientific explanation for the origin and development of life. It should not be fought by circumventing those scientists, via the courts, to reach public school science students.
Since ID is an important topic in history and the news, I think many legitimate venues exist in which it can be presented to public school students. It could be taught in a current events, history, or philosophy class. A history class would be a particularly informative venue because students could be taught the relationships among the modern ID movement, the arguments of Rev. William Paley, and the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras.
Having answered the two questions I set out to answer, I would now like to offer some general comments on the attitude, tone, and accusations present in Mr. Kaufman’s article. As I mentioned above, he accuses scientists of basing conclusions on galling levels of conceit and pride. I can only speak from my experience as a young physicist, but I have found scientists to be no more prideful than any other group with which I have interacted.
For example, contrary to Mr. Kaufman’s portrayal of scientists as an extremely conceited group of people who “just can't abide a God Who works His will in ways and for purposes they can't understand,” bringing Dr. Ross to the Physics Department was relatively easy. The chair of the colloquium committee had no objection to the lecture. The department chair agreed to allow the lecture if it was sponsored by the PGSC. The PGSC agreed to sponsor it, as did the undergraduate society of physics students (SPS). My primary contact with SPS was a self-identified atheist, and he and I worked together to design flyers advertising the event.
After the lecture, a faculty member in the department used foul language in an attack on the PGSC’s sponsorship. I think this foul-mouthed professor is the exception that proves the rule. The PGSC absorbed all criticism with dignity and professionalism; they never made any attempt to criticize or pass criticism on to me. I have suffered no negative consequences for organizing this lecture.
Physicists (and probably most other scientists) spend the majority of their time on tasks that are routine, mundane, and often humbling. Thinking of oneself as “one of the smartest people around” is a little difficult after one has spent two hours unsuccessfully attempting to track down a bug in a computer program. Being conceited and prideful is also difficult during the tedious process of gluing together several hundred pieces of plastic to form part of a large detector or trying to avoid being shocked by a 5500 volt electrical power supply for the detector.
Far more common among my fellow scientists is frustration. Many are often frustrated with a caricature of Christianity rather than with Christianity per se. Among other things, this caricature treats intellectuals with contempt, hurls uninformed insults at perceived opponents instead of loving them, equates Christian theology with American Republican political ideology, discourages questions, inhibits critical thinking, and ignores any data contrary to its preconceived scriptural interpretations. While this caricature may be unfair, articles like Mr. Kaufman’s powerfully reinforce it.
Scientists grow frustrated when knowledge that they and their predecessors have worked for centuries to uncover is demeaned, denied, or simply ignored. For instance, those of us who study or are interested in astronomy and cosmology grow frustrated when 50% of the American public does not know that Earth takes a year to orbit the sun. Frustration can grow quickly into bitterness and, I suspect, some of the hostility that Mr. Kaufman quoted.
When I am tempted to believe that this caricature is true Christianity, I question whether I can be a scientists and a Christian. Often, I feel as though my brain is being sheared in twain between my vocation and my faith. I doubt that I am the only Christian who feels this way. In one of my favorite Boundless articles, Mr. Nathan Finn claimed that our world would be improved if more Christians followed their calling into vocations like education, law, and medicine. I would add the arts and science to this list. If we want to see a stronger Christian influence on and within science, we should encourage more Christians to become scientists. The caricature I described, combined with Mr. Kaufman’s distorted depictions of science, may do the opposite by frightening prospective Christian scientists away from the vocation to which they are best suited.
Throughout his article, Mr. Kaufman claims to have knowledge of the religious beliefs of “committed Darwinists” and how scientists “talk among themselves.” How did he obtain this knowledge? He never cites his source, and he cannot claim to be part of the scientific community because Boundless describes him as “a freelance writer,” not a scientist. I am not a member of the community of freelance writers, so I do not make sweeping accusations against them. I would appreciate Mr. Kaufman extending the same respect to the scientific community, of which I am a member.
I realize this letter is lengthy, complex, and comes long after the article in question was published. However, this is a complex and emotional issue, and I needed time to research my source material and clearly articulate the facts, issues, and my opinions surrounding ID. Thank you for reading, and I hope I have been clear and imparted a greater understanding of science and my perspective as a Christian scientist.
Finally, I invite Mr. Kaufman and anyone else reading this letter to come to SLAC and take a tour. When you are here, you can visit our offices and experimental buildings, learn about our science, see who we are, and observe our work. You can search us and our work for atheism, bias, and our true motivations. Then you will be in a better position to judge whether we are wearing blinders, for “the glory of kings is to search things out.”
Your brother in Christ,
Luke Corwin
