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Defend Science Commentary
Assessing What is Going On Today:
To say the attacks on
science continue states the obvious. But Bush and the Republicans
appear to be in political trouble, and there has been rising opposition
to the attacks on science, including important victories. So how to
assess what is going on? This article will examine this by focusing on
the question that concentrates the overall assault on science and
scientific thinking - the creationist attack on evolution.
"Science is a human
endeavor transmitted from generation to generation. If the principles
and best practices of science are overthrown by religious or political
extremism, the institutions of science may be damaged irreparably. This
would be an unimaginable calamity for the human race." - from a
comment written to the Defend Science website
"In the United States
today science, as science, is under attack as never before. The signs
of this are everywhere. The attacks are coming at an accelerating pace,
and include frequent interventions by powerful forces, in and out of
the Bush Administration, who seem all too willing to deny scientific
truths, disrupt scientific investigations, block scientific progress,
undermine scientific education, and sacrifice the very integrity of the
scientific process itself -- all in the pursuit of implementing their
particular political agenda. And today this dominant political agenda
is profoundly allied and intertwined with an extremist (and extremely
anti-science) ideological agenda put forward by powerful fundamentalist
religious forces commonly known as the Religious Right." - from
the Defend Science Statement
Consider just a couple of the major developments this year:
- The Bush administration adamantly continues to refuse to do anything
serious about global warming. Harassment of global warming scientists
and suppression of global warming science continues. In late September,
according to an article in the journal Nature, the government
suppressed a report by government scientists that suggested that global
warming contributed to the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Bush
and company carry on in the face of outrage and concern from broad
sections of society; the consensus of the global scientific community
that global warming is driven significantly by human emission of
greenhouse gases with possibly disastrous consequences for humanity and
the planet; and even in the face of the defection of sections of
evangelical Christians from the denial of global warming.
- Determined to promote fundamentalist Christian moral codes among the
population, Bush vetoed the stem cell bill which had been passed by
Congress. The consequences are that he is continuing to block Federal
funding of a major new field of science with potentially huge impact on
human health. Bush’s veto went in the face of very broad support for
stem cell research that included Republicans like Nancy Reagan and Dr.
Bill Frist (who set some kind of record in contempt for scientific
methods when he diagnosed Terry Schiavo after briefly watching her on
video.) In Missouri, where an initiative in favor of stem cell research
is on the ballot, the Kansas City Star reported that: "Local and
national opponents of Missouri’s stem-cell initiative came together
Monday in a rousing church revival that was part prayer meeting, part
science lecture and part political rally. Former presidential candidate
Alan Keyes compared the initiative to terrorists who take innocent
human life and to slaveholders who justified slavery by arguing that
blacks were different...And Rick Scarborough, a Texas minister who
founded the conservative organization Vision America, called early
stem-cell research ‘a devilish science’ and urged church members to get
involved in the campaign to block the initiative."
To say the attacks on science continue states the obvious. But Bush and
the Republicans appear to be in political trouble, and there has been
rising opposition to the attacks on science, including important
victories. So how to assess what is going on? This article will examine
this by focusing on the question that concentrates the overall assault
on science and scientific thinking - the creationist attack on
evolution.
As everyone knows, despite the fact that evolution is as established as
any theory in science, the attack on evolution left the margins of
society and entered the mainstream. There is a creationist movement
across the country, largely focused tactically for now on state and
local school boards, but backed by powerful forces, including from the
office of the President. Bush’s science advisor assured us that
evolution is in fact real, but Bush’s own statements in the public
record remain and he has not retracted them in any way: he spoke in
favor of teaching about "intelligent design" in the schools, "I think
that part of education is to expose people to different schools of
thought", and "the verdict is still out on how God created the earth."
Astonishing words coming from the leader of the dominant "developed"
country on earth in the twenty first century. And this is no minor
matter. Evolution is foundational to all of biology, and beyond that,
foundational to much of modern science. And the attack on evolution,
particularly in its latest incarnation of "intelligent design", centers
on fundamental epistemological questions, questions of how we can know
and change the world, which are at the core of the battle over science
overall.
In Kitzmiller v. Dover, the major Dover, Pennsylvania Federal Court
case on the teaching of evolution in public schools, at the end of 2005
Federal Judge John Jones issued a sweeping verdict: intelligent design
is not science, but a form of religious expression which has no place
in science classes. He firmly upheld the separation of church and
state. This verdict was not legally binding outside of Jones’ district,
but it has had major political impact nationally. In both Ohio and
Michigan, for example, state school boards which had been involved in
political battles with creationists over opening the door to
"intelligent design" in science classes, ended up deciding not to allow
this under the influence of Kitzmiller. And in the battle ground state
of Kansas, the creationist majority on the state school board was voted
out. For now.
Dover was a real and important defeat for intelligent design, but a
powerful and multi-sided assault on evolution remains. The Christian
fundamentalist forces that are a key component of the attacks on
science have greatly grown in influence over the Bush years (as
evidenced by the Missouri stem cell battle noted above, among many many
other things.) Despite the fact that the leading theorists of
"intelligent design" try to make it appear (at times) that they have
purely "scientific" objectives and are not essentially religious,
"intelligent design" is in fact an important component part of the
movement that has been compared to an "American Taliban". And
creationism in its various forms continues to be funded and promoted by
powerful forces, beyond the White House. As physicist Lawrence Krauss
noted in the New York Times (speaking of the creationist defeat in
Kansas elections): "any celebration should be muted". He went on to
say: "With their changing political tactics, creationists are an
excellent example of evolution at work. Creation science evolved into
intelligent design, which morphed into ‘teaching the controversy,’ and
after its recent court loss in Dover, Pa., and political defeats in
Ohio and Kansas, it will no doubt change again."
In considering the possible future "evolution" of political tactics on
the part of intelligent design, we should put this in the context of
the strategy and larger goals of that movement. Earlier forms of
creationism, largely appealing to a less educated and sophisticated
audience than intelligent design, claimed to be "scientific" - by which
they essentially meant that by mercilessly twisting and distorting
science (and just making stuff up), they would "prove" that the
creation story in Genesis is literally true. "Intelligent design" on
the other hand, has set that absurd pursuit to the side, and has set
its sights on radically transforming science and the scientific method
itself, in society as a whole.
Phillip Johnson, architect of intelligent design and the wedge
strategy, outlined the larger objective of intelligent design in a 1999
article for Church and State magazine: "The objective is to convince
people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate
from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the
nonexistence of God. From there, people are introduced to 'the truth'
of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to
Jesus.'" The larger aim, in short, is not scientific at all, but
religious, to shape the terms of debate and discussion in society away
from the truth of evolution to ultimately win people to Jesus. (Not
every single proponent of intelligent design is a Christian
fundamentalist, and not all of them share all of the same philosophical
approach. But key intelligent design strategists, the movement’s links
to larger political and religious forces, and the actual effect of ID
as a movement, do in fact aim for the ends Johnson outlined.)
These aims of intelligent design are carried out through an aggressive
attack on the foundations of scientific thinking and method. One place
this is revealed most directly is in the "wedge strategy" which was
originally an internal paper of the Discovery Institute, a key
intelligent design think tank. After this was leaked to the internet,
the Discovery Institute at first denied ownership - it revealed too
much of their extreme religious thinking and aims. They eventually
admitted it was in fact their own document.
The document shows how the intelligent design movement aims to throw
out what has been at the heart of science for centuries - that science
should, and can, seek to understand (and change) the natural, material
world. The "Wedge Strategy" paper aims to uproot historically developed
scientific method that seeks answers in the natural world and does not
base itself on the intervention of God. (Some ID proponents say that
the "designer" might not be God but some other super-intelligent force.
Right. And that’s why Pat Robertson threatened the people of Dover with
God’s punishment when they voted out a creationist school board). The
"Wedge Strategy" says, "The social consequences of materialism have
been devastating - we are convinced that in order to defeat
materialism, we must cut it off at its source. Design theory promises
to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist world view, and to
replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic
convictions." This basic aim of the intelligent design forces came out
openly in Kansas in 2005, when the state school board (the majority of
which was ousted in the last election) changed the definition of
science to allow supernatural causes - i.e., God - as an active agent
in science itself.
Intelligent design, which presents itself as a criticism of evolution
in fact contains a sweeping and radical attack on all of science. They
want to get rid of the basis on which science has made advances over
hundreds of years in understanding and changing the world. They want to
eliminate the need to develop scientific theories that actually
correspond to reality and have to be testable by experiment. And
instead to bring in a supernatural force to explain the way the world
is - they want to build God into the heart of modern science. Dr.
Eugenie C. Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for
Science Education, has pointed out:
"Evolution is a concept
that applies to all sciences, from astronomy to chemistry to geology to
biology to anthropology. Attacking evolution means attacking much of
what we know of the natural world, that we have amassed through the
application of scientific principles and methods.
Second, creationist
attacks on evolution are attacks on science itself, because the
creationist approach does violence to how we conduct science: science
as a way of knowing."
Of course, the intelligent design forces do not say all of this openly,
even though the Discovery Institute has been forced to admit its
relationship to the "wedge strategy". They have been trying to get in
the door (especially inside science classrooms) under the guise of
"let’s allow a diversity of views and freedom to criticize theories",
let us just discuss criticisms of evolution. But this has been merely a
(very dishonest) legal and tactical approach. They can and will adjust
it. And they will have to adjust, as the Kitzmiller decision ripped
apart their charade that intelligent design had nothing to do with
religion. But every indication is that their underlying aim will
remain, as the "Wedge strategy" puts it, to seek "nothing less than the
overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies."
And one sobering thing to understand in relation to their future
efforts is that it was only with the emergence of intelligent design in
the 1990's, and its attack on the foundations of science, that the
creationist movement got powerful financial backing (and other kinds of
backing) from big-time American capitalist forces like Weyerhauser,
which has funded the Discovery Institute. And there is no sign that
this kind of backing will stop.
A further sign of the seriousness of all this is that the attacks on
evolution and science have unfolded for years now and the leadership of
the Democratic party has not been stunning in its silence. Al Gore
barely mentioned global warming in the election in 2000. In explaining
this recently in the context of the important things he says in "An
Inconvenient Truth", he told the San Francisco Chronicle that his
advisors told him not to talk about it. And in 2004, Kerry hardly even
talked about Bush’s appalling stand on evolution in the 2004 election
campaign. And to this day, what leading Democrat has gone on an
offensive and sharply raised the question of how can you lead a country
like this and be working to undermine evolution and the scientific
method?
So, we have a problem. Powerful forces and growing movements are
relentlessly attacking science - and the opposition to this is still
far too quiet and disorganized. There have been and continue to be some
really important and even heroic efforts, as in Dover and in a number
of battles at the state and local level across the country. But it is
still the case that biology teachers in many many parts of the country
cannot teach evolution in public schools - and when they do try, they
often face the wrath of administrators, some parents, and elements of
the community. And many people who do understand what is going on are
still too much agonizing in silence.
This needs to change, and it can change. There is a determined assault
on science, but there is at the same time a growing vulnerability and
weakness in this crusade. The verdict in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case
DID tear open the lie that intelligent design has nothing to do with
religion, and this has had real impact. Millions are outraged at things
like the suppression of stem cell research and are agonizing over the
implications of global warming. There is a real chance and potential to
turn the situation around and defeat the attacks on science - but those
millions need to find the ways to enter into the fight. And it will
take a fight. Deeply entrenched and highly motivated forces remain
firmly behind creationism and the overall attacks on science, and these
are not people who will fold up their tents because they lost a
lawsuit.
All of this is why the Defend Science Statement is an important part of
the foundation of the kind of battle it will take. It aims to rally the
scientific community to speak broadly to the population about the heart
of the matter. It aims to reach very broadly to the people across the
country who are most in danger of having science and scientific
thinking ripped away from their lives and the lives of their children,
and to call on them to defend science.
As the Defend Science statement concludes,
"It is up to us. It is time to take a clear and decisive stand in
defense of science. This is of crucial and urgent importance not only
for scientists but for people throughout society, for humanity as a
whole and for future generations."
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