It is not enough that the postmodern educators want to rewrite history.  They won't be satisfied until they have redefined reality in terms that de-legitimize spirituality---------------  religious or secular-------------   and rue the day that a graduate ever looked to a higher cause than natural evolution for values to live by.   It seems to this writer that if the human quest for transcendent value is disparaged, people will detach themselves from the values of art, music, and literature, as well.   If the nihilists have their way, Western Society will become what T. S. Elliot called "The Hollow Men"---------------  "Headpiece filled with straw", living for the moment, hiding in the noisy crowd, fortifying themselves with food and drink, insensitive to the sparkle in a child's eyes or the magnificence of the universe.

The debate over Intelligent Design has been portrayed as a plot by the religious right to "reinsert" God into our culture and thereby cause the death of Science.  This is absurd in view of the fact that Science has been the source of the evidence supporting ID.   The phrase "intelligent design" can be found in an 1847 issue of Scientific American, and in an address to the 1873 annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science by botanist George James Allman.  Quantum mechanics revolutionized physics by showing that things are not completely predictable.   Cosmologists have come to the conclusion that the universe actually did have a starting point, and several have expressed the view that life is meaningless without a Designer.

It is the evolutionists who are on a crusade to reduce man to the level of a bio-mechanical process, leaving nothing of value untrammeled in their zeal.  That natural selection is the most logical design conceivable to accommodate each creature to its environment seems to have escaped their grasp, not to mention an uncreated source that transcends the limits of their intelligence.

Kenneth R. Miller, a Biology professor at Brown University, was the first witness in the Dover ID trial of September, 2005.  He filed this report on Christmas Day, 2005:  

If there is such a thing as home-field advantage in a courtroom, intelligent design should have carried the day in the Dover evolution trial.

Advocates of ID had the support of the local school board, a case presented by experienced lawyers from the Thomas More Legal Foundation, expert witnesses with scientific credentials, and a conservative judge appointed by President George W. Bush.  That judge gave them all the time they wanted to lay out the scientific case for ID. And lay it out they did.

But that was exactly the problem.

In the harsh light of the courtroom, ID shriveled and died.  As Judge John E. Jones 3d noted in his opinion, he was forced to come to "the inescapable conclusion that ID is an interesting theological argument, but that it is not science."   After six weeks of watching from the bench as ID's pseudoscientific arguments fell apart, as its advocates admitted they had no positive evidence for "design," and as school board members "testified inconsistently, or lied outright under oath," it was clear that the judge had seen enough.

He slammed the Dover school board's "breathtaking inanity," and he enjoined the board from making ID a part of its curriculum at any time in the future.   Jones' devastating opinion is written in clear and accessible language and should be required reading for every administrator, school board member, and science educator in the United States.

So, exposed, discredited and defeated, ID is finished as an anti-evolution movement, right?   I wouldn't count on it.

As the Dover trial showed, ID is nothing more than old-fashioned creationism, distinguished only by its advocates' willingness to be disingenuous about its origins, motivations and goals.  But that does little to detract from its appeal. Advocates of ID, such as Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.), oppose evolution not because of its scientific flaws, but because they see it as a cultural and moral threat.

In an Aug. 4 interview on National Public Radio, Santorum stated that "if we are the result of chance, if we're simply a mistake of nature, then that puts a different moral demand on us.  In fact, it doesn't put a moral demand on us--------------- than if in fact we are a creation of a being that has moral demands."   In other words, the problem with evolution, in his view, is that it invalidates morality because it does away with God.

Santorum, of course, has recently retracted his support of those involved in the Dover case.  But his principled opposition to evolution remains.

That kind of visceral opposition isn't going to respond to scientific evidence, and it certainly isn't going to be affected by a judge's ruling-------even from a judge whom the senator himself supported for the bench.

Nationwide, ID is on the march, and Dover notwithstanding, it's winning. The ID movement has rewritten science-education standards in Kansas, gained the support of legislators in more than a dozen states, and regularly pressures teachers, administrators and textbook publishers to weaken the coverage of evolution.  Dover represents a substantial victory for science, but the greater war goes on.  And, like many wars, this one results from a profound misunderstanding.

The great fiction that powers the ID movement is that evolution is inherently antireligious.  By emphasizing the material nature of evolutionary science, ID advocates are convinced that they can force their anti-science ideas into the classroom in the name of balance and fairness.  Once there, they are convinced, students in a society as religious as the United States will surely turn their backs on mainstream science, embracing ID and strengthening their faith in God.  Any harm in that?

Why, none at all, if we are prepared to abdicate world leadership by raising a generation of young people so mistrustful of science that they turn their backs on the scientific community and abandon science as a way of knowing about the world and improving the human condition.

A deeper understanding of Western religion in general, and the Christian message in particular, would end this war and blunt the attempts of the anti-evolution movement to divide Americans along cultural lines.  As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote last month, "How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God.  What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein?"  What indeed?  For just as Darwin said, there is "grandeur in this view of life," and a deeper understanding of the ways in which "endless forms most wonderful and most beautiful have been and are being evolved" can only deepen our faith and enhance our respect for the unity of scientific and spiritual knowledge.

On this Christmas season, I thank the Lord for the wonderful people of Dover who fought for this decision, and I hope the good news of its wisdom will spread throughout the land.

Assuming that a district judge is qualified to render an "inescapable conclusion" that ID is not science, and conjecturing that it will cause young people to abandon Science, Professor Miller chose not to quote Krauthammer's lead paragraphs, which cast a different light on his suggestion that Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were anti-theists:

Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous: that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious.

Newton's religion was traditional.  He was a staunch believer in Christianity and a member of the Church of England.  Einstein's was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe.

Neither saw science as an enemy of religion.  On the contrary.  "He believed he was doing God's work," James Gleick wrote in his recent biography of Newton.  Einstein saw his entire vocation--------------understanding the workings of the universe--------------as an attempt to understand the mind of God.

 

Since Kenneth Miller is the spokesman for the anti-ID movement, the public should read carefully what he says.   And he has said and written a great deal.   I'm reluctant to apply the word "stupid" to a scientific debate, but even the casual reader should see the fallacy in Miller's rebuff of ID advocate Michael Behe's principle of "irreducible complexity."  Behe uses the analogy of a mousetrap to demonstrate how some biological processes could not have come about by accident or have evolved without an inherent end design.

Miller doesn't attack Behe's premise as untrue; instead he argues that the parts of a mousetrap may "have different, but still useful, functions."   But this, of course, is not the point of Behe's principle.  Miller then proceeds to challenge specific biological examples cited by Behe with examples of intermediate processes of lesser complexity, as if to say, Sure--------- Nature does this all the time!  If that isn't a vindication for Behe, I don't know what is.  Having failed to put down the irreducible complexity principle, Miller concludes his argument by complaining that his adversary's "point is philosophical, not scientific".  Here is Miller's article "The Flaw in the Mousetrap " as published in Natural History magazine:

To understand why the scientific community has been unimpressed by attempts to resurrect the so-called argument from design, one need look no further than Michael J. Behe's own essay.  He argues that complex biochemical systems could not possibly have been produced by evolution because they possess a quality he calls irreducible complexity.  Just like mousetraps, these systems cannot function unless each of their parts is in place.  Since "natural selection can only choose among systems that are already working," there is no way that Darwinian mechanisms could have fashioned the complex systems found in living cells.  And if such systems could not have evolved, they must have been designed.  That is the totality of the biochemical "evidence" for intelligent design.

Ironically, Behe's own example, the mousetrap, shows what's wrong with this idea.  Take away two parts (the catch and the metal bar), and you may not have a mousetrap but you do have a three-part machine that makes a fully functional tie clip or paper clip.  Take away the spring, and you have a two-part key chain.  The catch of some mousetraps could be used as a fishhook, and the wooden base as a paperweight; useful applications of other parts include everything from toothpicks to nutcrackers and clipboard holders.  The point, which science has long understood, is that bits and pieces of supposedly irreducibly complex machines may have different ------------   but still useful-------------   functions.

Behe's contention that each and every piece of a machine, mechanical or biochemical, must be assembled in its final form before anything useful can emerge is just plain wrong.  Evolution produces complex biochemical machines by copying, modifying, and combining proteins previously used for other functions.  Looking for examples?   The systems in Behe's essay will do just fine.

He writes that in the absence of "almost any" of its parts, the bacterial flagellum "does not work."  But guess what?   A small group of proteins from the flagellum does work without the rest of the machine--------------  it's used by many bacteria as a device for injecting poisons into other cells.   Although the function performed by this small part when working alone is different, it nonetheless can be favored by natural selection.
 
The key proteins that clot blood fit this pattern, too.  They're actually modified versions of proteins used in the digestive system.   The elegant work of Russell Doolittle has shown how evolution duplicated, retargeted, and modified these proteins to produce the vertebrate blood-clotting system.

And Behe may throw up his hands and say that he cannot imagine how the components that move proteins between subcellular compartments could have evolved, but scientists actually working on such systems completely disagree.  In a 1998 article in the journal Cell, a group led by James Rothman, of the Sloan-Kettering Institute, described the remarkable simplicity and uniformity of these mechanisms.   They also noted that these mechanisms "suggest in a natural way how the many and diverse compartments in eukaryotic cells could have evolved in the first place."   Working researchers, it seems, see something very different from what Behe sees in these systems---------------- they see evolution.

If Behe wishes to suggest that the intricacies of nature, life, and the universe reveal a world of meaning and purpose consistent with a divine intelligence, his point is philosophical, not scientific.  It is a philosophical point of view, incidentally, that I share.  However, to support that view, one should not find it necessary to pretend that we know less than we really do about the evolution of living systems.  In the final analysis, the biochemical hypothesis of intelligent design fails not because the scientific community is closed to it but rather for the most basic of reasons-----------because it is overwhelmingly contradicted by the scientific evidence.

Why is it that the positivists are paranoiac about the Intelligent Design concept?   It can't be the fear that ID will destroy Darwin's theory; in fact, it complements the law of natural selection, filling in acknowledged gaps in the theory.  Nor can it be that the religious fundamentalists, as some have said, are "taking over".  This is nonsensical: the number of fundamentalists whose belief is based on a literal interpretation of Genesis represents a dwindling minority of Christians. 

Intelligent Design is--------------presently, at least---------------a philosophical theory or concept rather than a science.   But no one is asking that it be taught as a science.  Why shouldn't Biology students be informed of the arguments, pro and con, so as to better appreciate the limitations as well as the application of Darwin's theory to the scientific perspective?   Isn't this the purpose of education------------    especially a liberal education?  

Some have raised objections to the term "intelligent" in naming the design concept on the ground that intelligence is a function of the human intellect which cannot be attributed to a Creator.  There is some justification for this criticism, although any non-random design may be considered intelligent without inferring a Designer.   The evolution of the species itself is a non-random design in that it leads to a higher, more complex order of creatures, as opposed to thermo-dynamic processes which tend to run down or assume simpler forms of order.

Hard-core evolutionists take comfort in believing that they do not have to contend with supernatural forces, that physical reality is fixed in time and space and can be quantitatively expressed in formulas and equations.  They see their objectivity as "intelligent", while rejecting the intelligence of the design they study.  Is such narrow-mindedness a reaction to the centuries of pre-scientific ideas which they have battled to put past them, or has the devaluation of meaning and purpose become the philosophical goal of Science? 

But it would be a mistake to accept Kenneth Miller's charge that this is fundamentally an intellectual dispute between religion and science.  What is going on here is nothing short of a bid for political power by liberal groups, such as the National Council of Scientific Education, who see America's move toward multiculturalism as the wave of the future and want to spearhead this movement for their own aggrandizement. The more they can discredit legitimate ideas like ID in public debates, the greater their influence with the politicians who are their ticket to federal funding and support.  As long as it is politically correct to stand on the side of the objectivists, they will continue to inflame the old religious contentions and make scientific nihilism their power base.       

Phillip Johnson, whose insightful essays have appeared on this page before, believes nihilism has gained such a foothold in the postmodern scientific era that any resurgence of spirituality would threaten the equanimity of the objectivists.  His eloquent defense of essential values provides a fitting close to this tempest in a teapot over whether the universe was designed on purpose. 

Scientific naturalism provides our established religious philosophy with its picture of reality.  Liberal rationalism provides its ethical and political starting point.  If we are accidental products of a purposeless cosmos, as science currently tells us, then there are no objective values which we are obligated to respect.  Value is inherently a human creation in a naturalistic universe.  As individuals or as societies, we create values out of our imagination, just as we created God, and we can recreate those values as we choose.  That is why marriage, for example, can be culturally redefined at any time.  Marriage is not inherently a lifetime union between a husband and a wife, looking to the production of children.  It was defined that way in a pre-modern culture, and our modernist or post-modernist culture can redefine it to include arrangements intended to be only temporary, or same-sex unions, or even arrangements involving multiple partners.  Why not, now that we know the God who supposedly created marriage was in fact created out of the imagination of our ancestors? ...

The dogma that life is the product of unintelligent material processes is not only unproven, it is quite improbable when it is not assumed as part of the definition of science.  ...The assumption that nature is all there is, and that nature has been governed by the same rules at all times and places, makes it possible for natural science to be confident that it can explain such things as how life began.  This advantage comes at a heavy price, however.  Naturalism opens up the whole world of fact to scientific knowledge, but by the same token it consigns the whole realm of value to human subjectivity.  This consequence is unavoidable, because humans created by purposeless material processes can have nothing but themselves to look to in deciding how life ought to be lived.  On questions of value, science, the only source of objective knowledge, cannot supply answers.  On naturalistic assumptions science can say a lot about how creation may have occurred, but one thing it can never say with certainty is that the world so created is good.  Only God can say that.

The growing irrationalism on value questions suggests that a need may be felt for a broader concept of rationality, one which invites us to consider the possibility that writers like Dante and Milton knew something important which we have forgotten in our desire to maximize our control over the material world.  Of course, a desire to have a more comprehensive model of rationality cannot be satisfied if modernist naturalism is "the way things really are," but it may dispose humanists to look favorably upon efforts to subject naturalistic assumptions to critical scrutiny.

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*Kenneth R. Miller is co-author with Joseph S. Levine of the Biology textbook now used in Dover High School. He has also written Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution.

 Charles Krauthammer, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post and former psychiatrist, has won numerous awards for his writings, including a National Magazine Award and the 1987 Pulitzer for distinguished commentary.

Phillip E. Johnson, Professor of Law, Emeritus, UCLA, Berkeley School of Law, is the author of Defeating Darwinism (InterVarsity Press, 1977), Reason in the Balance (InterVarsity Press, 1995), and Darwin on Trial (Regnery Gateway, 1991), and has debated extensively on Creationism and Evolutionary Theory.