Responding to the Discovery Institute

The sleaze factor of the Intelligent Design movement is high, but the Discovery Institute is off the charts in this respect. A casual visitor to the Institute's website wouldn't necessarily notice that their goal is to control public education. They try to pass themselves off as champions of free thought, open discourse, and science. Unfortunately, they have no clue what science is, and their real goal is to get back to how things worked before the Scopes monkey trial, when teachers could be fired for teaching the theory of evolution.

The Discovery Institute's attitude toward science is best exemplified by the "Dissent from Darwinism" page that appears on their website. That page lets you add your name to a list of people who don't like the theory of evolution. The page contains two quotes. (a) "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." (b) "Darwinian evolution ... does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology" (Dr. Philip S. Skell). If you agree with those two claims, simply fill out a webform to add your voice to the growing groundswell of resistance to Darwinism.

It certainly sounds democratic, having people vote for their favorite explanation of how the universe works. But voting is a political solution, not a scientific one.

Of course, the Discovery Institute isn't so crass as to ask people to blindly vote for or against Darwinism. They provide rational, logical explanations for their stance on the matter. Under the heading of "Scientific Research and Scholarship," the Discovery Institute's website lists a number of scholarly articles, one of which is "DNA and the Origin of Life" by Stephen C. Meyer. According to Meyer's sixty page article, "the design hypothesis does constitute a better explanation than its materialistic or naturalistic rivals for the origin of specified biological information. Surely, simply classifying an argument as metaphysical does not refute it."

The term "God" does not appear in Meyer's article, and the term religion appears only in the footnote section. The Bible is never mentioned or quoted directly. In particular, references to the book of Genesis are explicitly avoided. This is the level of subterfuge these folks are willing to practice in order to slime their way back into the classroom.

But, as with earlier, more overt forms of Intelligent Design and its predecessor, Creationism, the Discovery Institute's approach still tries to pawn off convoluted logic, five dollar words, and scientific-sounding terminology as science. Meyer sounds reasonable and fair-minded when he says, "Surely, simply classifying an argument as metaphysical does not refute it." Of course, no one is saying that metaphysical arguments are inherently wrong. Science merely says that metaphysical arguments aren't useful for revealing new knowledge or leading us to new discoveries.

When we ask a question like, "Why was Mrs. Smith's baby born without arms or legs?", the simplest, most complete, and most irrefutable answer is, "Because that's how God wants it." Unfortunately, while that sort of answer might lead us to attend church more regularly and contribute more faithfully to the offering plate, it gives us no direction as to how to prevent similar tragedies happening in the future.

A scientific theory isn't something you vote for. It isn't something that wins because it makes sense or sounds impressive. It isn't a mere explanation of existing knowledge. Rather, a scientific theory must have predictive power which leads us to new knowledge and, ultimately, new pragmatic applications. Darwinism leads to the study of genetics, to an understanding of the impact of climate change on ecosystems, to improved agricultural methods, and to a host of other new ideas and applications. This is what makes it scientific, what validates it.

Here's a worthwhile goal for the Discovery Institute, as well as for all other promoters of Creationism and Intelligent Design: instead of funding yet more political lobbying and pseudo-scientific papers, let them find the cure for a disease. If they think modern biology and Darwinism are flawed, let's see them demonstrate a viable alternative. Not in words, not via more sophistry, but through practical application.

Not only has the Discovery Institute never cured a single disease or solved a single pragmatic problem, they never will. In fact, they'll never even make an honest attempt. (Given the sleaze factor, we acknowledge that they might at least pretend.) Why won't they really try? Because, deep down, they know that what they're promoting isn't science. Deep down, they know that Intelligent Design leads people to pray and read The Bible, but doesn't lead to this-worldly, pragmatic solutions.

If you have any doubts on the matter, try it yourself. Take Muscular Dystrophy, for example. How would you use Intelligent Design to find a cure for this horrible disease? Since the universe and all life in it is designed, maybe you'd try to get in contact with the original designer, if that entity is still around. "Yo, dude, some of your stuff is broke. How about a little help here. An owner's manual, maybe?"

Science is about using human intelligence to solve here-and-now problems. Religion is about figuring out how to make God happy, how to live a moral life, and how to get into heaven. When religious people try to undercut science, they do everyone a disservice, because if they succeeded, we would find ourselves back living a medieval existence, where half of all children died before the age of five, and anybody who failed to obey religious dictates found themselves burned at the stake.

The Discovery Institute claims that they are the keepers of superior morality, and that is why they need the political authority to rein in heartless, soulless science.

If you want to see how moral and compassionate a religiously-controlled government is, get thee to Iran or some Taliban-dominated area, and hang out there for a while. If you think Christians wouldn't be as violent or repressive as the Muslims, grab a history book covering England in the late 1400s and early 1500s. If you think Christians have learned their lesson in the years since, check out their persecution of Mormons during the mid-1800s. Or their bigotry toward gays today.

Make no mistake, these people know they're right, and they're not afraid to lie, subvert the constitution, or endanger the health of millions of people by undermining modern science and medicine, in order to get their way. Nor would they be satisfied merely with "equal time" in the science classroom. Their ultimate goal is to do the Lord's work, and if a bunch of people have their rights -- or their lives -- taken away as a result, well, that's just too bad.

Evolution of Religion

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are evolved religions. They all appeared at arbitrary points in human history, have all changed their doctrines along the way, and continue to evolve even today. Although these religions all claim to be the answer, none of them is. At best, they are works in progress, an important point for believers to keep in mind, since absolute certainty has led -- and continues to lead -- adherents of these religions to commit hateful acts in the name of God.

Even if we accept the notion that the Earth is merely 6,000 years old, as Christians once claimed, Judaism didn't begin to take shape as a religion until 4,000 years ago. Christianity, meanwhile, has been around for less than a third of recorded history, and Islam is 600 years younger still. Are we really to believe that God has changed his mind about what makes him happy?

None of these religions, meanwhile, has remained true to its original form. Judaism has evolved partly in response to external pressures and partly in response to the increasingly enlightened cultural environment. For example, after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., animal sacrifice became increasingly difficult to perform from a logistical point of view and was eventually abandoned entirely. However, even if a new Temple were built today, one has to wonder if animal sacrifice would be practiced there, or would Judaism recognize the pointless waste associated with such behavior?

As a species of religion, Judaism has split into several sub-species, including Hassidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, Reform Jews, Reconstruction Jews, and so forth. But Judaism has been affected by more granular examples of genetic drift, most notably with respect to the core document of the Jewish faith, the Ten Commandments. Face it, if God came down and handed you a stone tablet with ten rules on it, would you dare tinker with those rules? Yet this is exactly what Judaism has been doing for thousands of years via the Talmud, a scholarly work that has far more significance for practicing Jews today than the Ten Commandments ever did.

The evolutionary history of Christianity, meanwhile, would require a book all to itself if we were to fully trace the various bifurcations, mergers, extinctions, and adaptive mutations that have taken place. Today there are more than 500 Protestant denominations, in addition to the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Catholic variants. At what point does a situation become too ridiculous for even the most ardent adherent? When it comes to religion, the answer is, never. True believers in every one of these religions could explain to you why their approach is the right one.

In 1968, against the generally prevailing trend, the Methodist and United Brethren Churches merged to form the United Methodist Church. Interestingly, you can go into a United Methodist Church and find them singing "Give me that Old Time Religion" or "Rock of Ages," and no one in the congregation will so much as crack a smile at the irony of it.

Some denominations, such as the Church of Christ, try to double-think their way around their short history by claiming to be Bible based. "What makes us the right answer," they say, "is that we strictly follow the New Testament, take communion every week, and practice only full-immersion baptism of people who have reached the age of consent." If you dare point out that the New Testament says nothing about weekly communion or the exact rules of baptism, an astute adherent will reply by saying, "When a scripture is vague, we do things the same way Christians did it in the first century." An interesting answer, except that first century Christians didn't have churches, they met in each other's homes. They also didn't have Hi-C grape juice. Their communion drink was wine.

But such non-sequiturs abound, products of Christianity's twisted evolutionary path and the desire of Church leaders to obfuscate the nuttiness of what they're doing. Christianity, in all its forms, is suffused with petty, pointless, dead-end doctrines that are the religious equivalent of the human appendix.

Islam, for its part, split into three sub-variants before Mohammed's corpse was even cold in its tomb. The burkha is a relatively new development in Islam's history, as is the antagonism between Judaism and Islam. Given that both religions worship the same God and recognize the Bible as divinely inspired, it's clear that religion is being twisted into a political tool in the Middle East.

Suicide bombers, far from being guaranteed a quick ride to heaven, violate two dictates of the Koran: that suicide is a sin, and that innocents should never be targeted in a war. But religious adherents have long been comfortable ignoring scripture when it proves inconvenient -- a clear sign they don't really believe in God, or at least, don't really believe in their religion.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have all evolved over time, and they will continue to evolve. Does this imply that these religions are entirely false? No. However, it does show that they are not eternal, immutable, or flawless. Each of these religions has fallen victim to misinterpretations of scripture. Each has been guilty of committing hateful acts in the name of God. Even today, religion continues to serve as a justification for violence, bigotry, and criminal behavior.

Christianity was once used to justify slavery, but do you really think that affected God's opinions on the matter?

Far from being absolutely certain of their own righteousness, religious people should acknowledge that their beliefs were different a hundred years ago and will be different a hundred years from now. As such, believers should be less willing to set themselves up as examples of superior morality, and more willing to question modern interpretations of scripture. Such interpretations have been proven wrong before, and they will be proven wrong again.

Responding to FTE

The Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE) is a proponent of Intelligent Design (ID). They claim that ID is a scientific theory. It isn't. They want to have their bogus theory taught side-by-side with Darwinism, never mind that doing so violates the U.S. Constitution and would distract students from the study of modern biology and medicine.

According to the FTE web site, "As a scientific theory, all ID claims is that there is empirical evidence that key features of the universe and living things are the products of an intelligent cause."

The quote above shows a misunderstanding of what constitutes a scientific theory. A scientific theory must do more than provide a conceptual framework for information we already have, it must have predictive power and, ultimately, practical application. It must give us knowledge we didn't have before, not merely a different way of thinking about things we already know.

The human mind is a powerful mechanism, capable of looking at a cloud or an ink blot and seeing a dragon or a starship. We can look at any piece of information (such as that a rock, when thrown up into the air, falls back to Earth) and come up with any number of explanations for it. Aristotle said that the rock falls because the Earth is its natural home. Religion would say that the rock falls because God wants it to. Though these explanations both "work," neither is a scientific theory, because neither one can lead us to new scientific knowledge or new practical applications.

Newton's Theory of Gravity, on the other hand, is scientific. Newton said that the rock falls back to Earth because of a force called gravity which you can neither see, smell, touch, nor taste. However irrational or silly Newton's idea might sound, it fulfills the requirement of leading us to new knowledge. For example, the Theory of Gravity implies that a rock could in fact leave the Earth, never to return, via a principle called escape velocity. Communication satellites, moon missions, Mars landers, and Voyager spacecraft have done more than "prove" Newton's theory, they were made possible by that theory. This is the critical point.

Darwinism constitutes a scientific theory because it leads to improved methods of agriculture, animal husbandry, conservation, and most significantly, to the study of genetics as the mechanism by which inherited information is passed along.

Where does ID lead? Try this as an exercise: Pick a disease -- Multiple Sclerosis (MS), for example. Now, explain how you would go about finding a cure or treatment for MS using Intelligent Design as your guiding principle. Given that life on Earth is the product of an intelligent designer, what does that say about a disease like MS? Does it mean the design has become broken? How can you be sure? What if the design isn't broken, but MS is in fact part of the design, part of the plan? If that's the case, wouldn't it be impossible, dangerous, or even blasphemous to cure MS?

But the proponents of ID are nothing if not slippery. They've given up explicitly mentioning God in their documents. In some cases, they don't even attempt to promote ID, but merely to undercut Darwinism through creative interpretation of the term "theory" and through outright lies (such as that Darwinism is controversial to anyone but religious fundamentalists). This is unfortunate, since the Theory of Evolution is fundamental to modern biology and medicine. DNA research is uncovering the genetic causes for hundreds of diseases. Study of non-human DNA could lead to cures or treatments for thousands of maladies caused by viruses, bacteria, and parasites. Attacking Darwinism, then, is not a victimless crime. It is, in fact, a heartless endeavor that steals time from educators and researchers and, thus, could delay the arrival of some cure or treatment.

Of course, the proponents of ID are perfectly willing to treat DNA like it is their friend. Of Pandas and People, a book that ID proponents feel should be provided as a supplemental text in biology classrooms, tells us that, "If science is based upon experience, then science tells us the message encoded in DNA must have originated from an intelligent cause" (2nd ed., 1993, pg. 7). First, as we discussed earlier, science isn't based upon experience. It isn't just another way of explaining what we already know. It must lead us to new knowledge.

Second, the claim that our DNA "must have" an intelligent origin relies on a non-sequitur. DNA uses a base four coding scheme that is functionally equivalent to the base two scheme used in computers. Since we can use base two to encode textual information, surely we could do so using base four. And here comes the non-sequitur: the ability to encode textual information using DNA implies that DNA was designed by a higher intelligence.

The gobbledygook nature of our DNA (long stretches that encode for nothing at all, repeated sequences that are highly prone to errors during replication, and the Rube Goldberg convolutions whereby some genes are activated or deactivated) all would get a computer programmer fired. Moreover, human DNA does not in fact contain a copy of the Ten Commandments, never mind the New Testament. Its main job is to encode for proteins. Whatever coding mechanism it used to accomplish that task, we could point to it and say, "Aha. It's storing information, therefore it must have been designed."

Organizations like FTE continue to morph their arguments in an attempt to force their antiquated beliefs into the classroom. For parents, teachers, and school boards, countering this sort of sophistry can become a major time sink. Especially if you happen to be religious, you might feel that the effort isn't worth the gain. After all, where's the harm in having God mentioned (however obliquely) alongside Darwinism? However, there is harm. Even if it only leads one brilliant mind away from a career in biology or medicine, it could thereby delay the cure for some disease. Would God really be pleased by the unnecessary suffering of even a single child, just so a small group of people can continue clinging to a medieval, erroneous interpretation of the Bible? Somehow, I doubt it.

Proponents of ID like to claim they merely want fair treatment for their theory. Equal time, as it were. But equal time for ID isn't fair. To date, no cure or treatment has ever arisen either from ID or from its predecessor, Creationism. These "theories" have been around long enough that they could have produced something concrete, some solution to a real-world, ongoing problem. Not only have they failed, I'll go out on a limb and say that (despite well-funded organizations and think tanks like FTE), there isn't a single laboratory, a single scientist anywhere applying Intelligent Design in a search for new knowledge or some new application.

By their actions shall ye know them. While organizations like FTE devote enormous time and resources to lobbying for their theory, they make no attempt at all to apply it. Until they do, and do so successfully, we have every right to treat ID as religion and politics, not as science, and therefore to totally exclude it from the science classroom. It's more than fair, it's the right thing to do.