Yesterday, I wrote about John Derbyshire, who is one of my favorite conservative writers, although he’s also a sharp critic of the I.D. movement. This led me to reflect on how other conservative pundits have judged the Intelligent Design debate.
Today, two of the most prominent conservative leaders are George Will and Charles Krauthammer. I like them both. They are above-average thinkers who usually have insightful opinions about politics and current events. But in 2005, they both wrote pieces about I.D. that reflected – shall we say – “strange thinking,” or maybe (if we’re being harsh) no thinking at all.
Let’s start with George Will. In his column, he casually wrote that I.D. advocates were trying to “insinuate religion…into high school biology classes” and then warned that such “zealots” were causing the “conservative coalition” to become “unglued.” In a Nightline discussion that same year, Will paraphrased his opposition to I.D. this way…
“Cal says that the essence of science is open-ness. I think it's more than that. It's open-ness to discussion of testable hypotheses, falsifiable hypotheses, hypotheses for which you can conceive of contradicting evidence. And I do not believe that the adherents to the doctrine of Intelligent Design are open to that kind of evidence.”
But as other people have pointed out…
“In what sense is evolution testable and falsifiable?”
“In what way is the ‘Big Bang’ 'testable' or 'falsifiable'? But no one (not many anyway) laughs off Steven Hawking the way they do Dembski or Behe. Besides, to be 'testable' or 'falsifiable' something must first be observable. Please tell me when a dinosaur was observed evolving into a bird. Don't tell me about the fossil record. No one observed the fossils being formed either. The primary reason Intelligent Design is untestable is the so called 'mainstream' doesn't want to test it. In particular, Dembski's work is largely mathematical, what's 'untestable' about that?”
(By the way, if you have time, scroll through some of the comments to that article: The radical materialists shout “Grow up moron” and call the author a “scientifically-illiterate dishonest Christian hick.” There’s no such venom on the other side)
But I digress…
On to Krauthammer…
Krauthammer, to his discredit, never even bothers to explain why he opposes Intelligent Design. Instead, his piece is riddled with inflammatory rhetoric. He calls I.D. a “tarted-up version of creationism” (which is so fundamentally untrue that it exposes just how little he knows about the subject). He also calls I.D. a “fraud,” a “national embarrassment,” and an “insult to religion and to science.”
Wow! I’ve never seen Krauthammer so mad about anything (with the exception of Islamic terrorism).
While Krauthammer’s hostility is in a class by itself, the conservative elite shares Krauthammer’s dislike of Intelligence Design. In fact, I can’t think of a single conservative pundit who has chosen to go on offense when it comes to I.D., with the notable exception of Ann Coulter. Read Chapter 8 of her book, Godless.
So what do we make of all this? Well, I don’t want to speculate too much. I just think it’s interesting that 3 of the leading lights of the modern conservative movement – Derbyshire, Krauthammer, and Will – have all written pieces on I.D. and yet all of those pieces are quite lousy (at least by the authors’ usually high standard), which shows that, even now, I.D. is grossly misunderstood – even by so-called “intellectuals.”
If I.D. was actually understood, and still opposed, I would have to do some soul-searching; but since it’s so misunderstood, it’s hard to give much credence to the arguments of other side. And therefore, it’s even harder to feel much angst from the level of opposition it arises.
-Todd
**UPDATE 03/21/09**
I decided to do a little more research on this topic (although what I researched was quite disappointing). First, I found John Derbyshire's review of Expelled, the popular documentary regarding the I.D. controversy (although "review" might be a misnomer, since Derbsyhire admits that he never saw the movie!).
At the risk of sounding over-the-top, Mr. Derbsyhire's piece is outrageous - one of the most mean-spirited, yet intellectually sloppy, articles I have ever read (and it really pains me to admit that because, as I've mentioned before, I really enjoy Mr. Derbyshire as a political writer).
Like Krauthammer, Mr. Derbyshire frequently uses the slur "creationist" (with the sort of pleasure usually found among 13-year old boys when they discover the word "fag."). As I've mentioned before, whenever commentators use the word "creationist" to tar I.D. proponents, it reveals either 1) ignorance about a topic they claim to be an expert on, or 2) deliberate and false distortion of their opponents. Either motivation is unacceptable.
The rest of Derbyshire's 2,200-word piece is literred with insults: According to Mr. Derbsyhire, Expelled is "stupid," "creationist porn, propaganda for ignorance." He then concluded his piece: "For shame, Ben Stein, for shame." And yet, in all those 2,200 words, Mr. Derbyshire never addresses the questions raised by Expelled. Not once. In fairness, he provides a link to the Expelled: Exposed website, but still, for the sake of being "reader-friendly," it would've nice of John to provide 1 or 2 rebuttals in the course of his text. That's not too much to ask.
The greatest irony is that Mr. Derbsyhire writes eloquently about the importance of scientific inquiry to Western civilization..
"Western civilization has many glories. There are the legacies of the ancients, in literature and thought. There are the late-medieval cathedrals, those huge miracles of stone, statuary, and spiritual devotion. There is painting, music, the orderly cityscapes of Renaissance Italy, the peaceful, self-governed townships of old New England and the Frontier, the steel marvels of the early industrial revolution, our parliaments and courts of law, our great universities with their spirit of restless inquiry.
And there is science, perhaps the greatest of all our achievements, because nowhere else on earth did it appear. China, India, the Muslim world, all had fine cities and systems of law, architecture and painting, poetry and prose, religion and philosophy. None of them ever accomplished what began in northwest Europe in the later 17th century, though: a scientific revolution. Thoughtful men and women came together in learned societies to compare notes on their observations of the natural world, to test their ideas in experiments, and in reasoned argument against the ideas of others, and to publish their results in learned journals. A body of common knowledge gradually accumulated.
"Our scientific theories are the crowning adornments of our civilization, towering monuments of intellectual effort, built from untold millions of hours of observation, measurement, classification, discussion, and deliberation."
I share Mr. Derbyshire's love of science, but as I've pointed out before, that's precisely why I feel the need to defend Intelligent Design's right to be heard. By contrast, Mr. Derbyshire calls I.D. "anti-civilization" and "an appeal to barbarism."
Come on, John, tell us how you really feel!
But what's just as interesting is the response to John's piece among his National Review colleagues...based on my research, I could not find a single rebuttal to his outrageous claims. NR had to bring in 3 outsiders (including 2 from the Discovery Institute) to challenge Mr. Derbyshire's arguments head-on. NR's leading lights were dead silent.
This reinforces my earlier observation that the Conservative Establishment is "out-to-lunch" on the I.D. issue (even though they could provide it some useful "political legitimacy"). Oh well.
-Todd
**UPDATE: MARCH 22, 2009**
I found another Derbyshire piece on I.D., although (to his credit) it's actually worth reading (and not just a childish screed). I won't deconstruct the article line-by-line (perhaps another time), but one sentence stood out to me: "Darwinism is the essential foundation for all of modern biology and genomics."
But is it?
Derbyshire should take a look at this Feb. 2009 piece in Forbes.com: The Dangers Of Overselling Evolutionll, who is emeritus Evan Pugh professor of chemistry at Penn State University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
In his article, Dr. Skell says...
"I don't think science has anything to fear from a free exchange of ideas between thoughtful proponents of different views. Moreover, there are a number of us in the scientific community who, while we appreciate Darwin's contributions, think that the rhetorical approach of scientists such as Coyne unnecessarily polarizes public discussions and--even more seriously--overstates both the evidence for Darwin's theory of historical biology and the benefits of Darwin's theory to the actual practice of experimental science.
Coyne seems to believe the major importance of biological science is its speculations about matters which cannot be observed, tested and verified, such as origin of life, speciation, the essences of our fossilized ancestors, the ultimate causes of their changes, etc.
Experimental biology has dramatically increased our understanding of the intricate workings within living organisms that account for their survival, showing how they continue to function despite the myriad assaults on them from their environments. These advances in knowledge are attributable to the development of new methodologies and instruments, unimaginable in the preceding centuries, applied to the investigation of living organisms. Crucial to all fruitful experiments in biology is their design, for which Darwin's and Wallace's principles apparently provide no guidance.
Contrary to the beliefs of Professor Coyne and some other defenders of Darwin, these advances are not due to studies of an organism's ancestors that are recovered from fossil deposits. Those rare artifacts--which have been preserved as fossils--are impressions in stones which, even when examined with the heroic efforts of paleontologists, cannot reveal the details that made these amazing living organisms function."
"Examining the major advances in biological knowledge, one fails to find any real connection between biological history and the experimental designs that have produced today's cornucopia of knowledge of how the great variety of living organisms perform their functions. It is our knowledge of how these organisms actually operate, not speculations about how they may have arisen millions of years ago, that is essential to doctors, veterinarians, farmers and other practitioners of biological science."
"In 1942, Nobel Laureate Ernst Chain wrote that his discovery of penicillin (with Howard Florey and Alexander Fleming) and the development of bacterial resistance to that antibiotic owed nothing to Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's evolutionary theories.
The same can be said about a variety of other 20th-century findings: the discovery of the structure of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; new surgeries; and other developments.
Additionally, I have queried biologists working in areas where one might have thought the Darwinian paradigm could guide research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I learned that evolutionary theory provides no guidance when it comes to choosing the experimental designs. Rather, after the breakthrough discoveries, it is brought in as a narrative gloss.
The essence of the theory of evolution is the hypothesis that historical diversity is the consequence of natural selection acting on variations. Regardless of the verity it holds for explaining biohistory, it offers no help to the experimenter--who is concerned, for example, with the goal of finding or synthesizing a new antibiotic, or how it can disable a disease-producing organism, what dosages are required and which individuals will not tolerate it."
"It is unseemly and scientifically unfruitful that a major focus in biology should have turned into a war."
**UPDATE, MAY 16, 2009
Given the strange thinkinging by "conservative leaders" George Will and Charles Krauthammer (as shown above), perhaps it's no surprise that the most famous conservator leader of them all - Rush Limbuagh - has also shown some inexcusable ignorance about Intelligent Design. In a December 2005 radio broadcast, Limbuagh called I.D. proponents "disingenuous" and went on to say..
"Let's make no mistake. The people pushing intelligent design believe in the biblical version of creation. Intelligent design is a way, I think, to sneak it into the curriculum and make it less offensive to the liberals because it ostensibly does not involve religious overtones, that there is just some intelligent being far greater than anything any of us can even imagine that's responsible for all this, and of course I don't have any doubt of that. But I think that they're sort of pussyfooting around when they call it intelligent design."
Gee, with friends like this, who needs enemies! For no apparent reason, Limbaugh preemptively confirms the most powerful argument used AGAINST Intelligent Design - that it's a "disingenuous" attempt to bring the Bible into the classroom, and therefore a violation of the separation of church and state.
Why does Limbaugh feel the need to cut I.D. supporters at the knees with a blatantly false statement? After all, I.D. is not a "disingenuous" form of creationism. As Jonathan Witt, Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, says in the article...
"Traditional creationism begins with the Bible and moves from there to science. Intelligent design begins and ends with science...The theory of intelligent design is a methodology for detecting design, and scholars from a variety of backgrounds employ it – Christian, Jew, Hindu, even a former atheist like Antony Flew, who still rejects the God of the Bible."
As if the events of the last 8 years weren't proof enough (in terms of economic policy, foreign policy, and just place common sense), the conservative movement has GOT TO GET SOME NEW LEADERS!
**UPDATE, MAY 17, 2009**
I like Ross Douthat, the young conservative writer who recently earned a promotion to the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times. I also read his book, Grand New Party. But in this article on I.D. he reveals what could be his fatal weakness: an eagerness to abandon conservative principles to curry favor at coktail parties (in that case, he would be following in the footsteps of his mentor, David Brooks). See this line from his New Republic article, How Intelligent Design Hurts Conservatives (By Making Us Look Like Crackpots)...
"Intelligent design will run out of steam--a victim of its own grand ambitions. What began as a critique of Darwinian theory, pointing out aspects of biological life that modification-through-natural-selection has difficulty explaining, is now foolishly proposed as an alternative to Darwinism. On this front, intelligent design fails conspicuously."
A cynic might say we should expect this kind of sloppy reasoning from a young man who grew up in Manhattan and attended Harvard University...but I'm old-fashioned...I think people can overcome their environment and show independent judgment even if it means being scorned by their "betters." If Douthat wants to be one of the stars of the next generation of conservative leaders, he needs to care less about the opinions of people who live on the Upper East Side, Harvard Yard, and Chevy Chase, and tap into the soul of the "Real America." I still have confidence that he can do that.
Onto a related subject...more George Will news!
We discussed some of his "strange thinking" at the beginning of this post...but maybe there's a method to his madness...at the end of a long piece about penguins and grizzly bears (not the usual fare for a political columnist), Will writes...
"Reality's swirling complexity is sometimes lovely, sometime brutal; its laws propel the comings and goings of life forms in processes as impersonal as Antarctica is to the penguins or the bears were to Treadwell or Alaska was to Drop City North. It is so grand that nothing is gained by dragging an Intelligent Designer into the picture for praise. Or blame."
By using those words, George Will reveals himself to be either an atheist or an agnostic... knowing that, it would be fair to assume that his opposition to Intelligent Design is NOT a product of objective principle, but rather, is an extension of his personal religious beliefs - beliefs, it should be added, that he is quite eager to enforce through coercion.
-Todd
**UPDATE, JUNE 24, 2009**
I might need to start a regular feature called "Gratuitous Bashing of I.D. by Conservative Writers." There never seems to be enough of them! Sigh.
This time the culprit is columnist Tony Blankley.
In this Jun. 17 piece about the economy, he opens…
“To borrow Niall Ferguson's metaphor, if finance is an evolutionary process, then regulation is its intelligent design — which, I would add, is a cognate of faith, not science.”
As Ace Ventura might say, "Allllllllrighty then…"
Denyse O’Leary has the dubious task of trying to understand Blankley's put-down...
"The whole tangled metaphor reads like the guy doesn’t get it. Whether one regulates or doesn’t regulate is intelligent design - because intelligent agents make the choice either way. And regulation has its own evolutionary process - often, alas, it is the law of unintended consequences = the system evolves without guidance to produce unintended outcomes. Some people should read up on ID and Darwinism before they use them as metaphors."Agreed.
**UPDATE, JUL. 1, 2009**
This week, conservative pundit (and former presidential candidate) Pat Buchanan writes a favorable review of Eugene Windchy's new book, The End of Darwinism: And How a Flawed and Disastrous Theory Was Stolen and Sold."
As William Demski observes, "It’s nice to see people like Pat Buchanan feeling more at ease about going after Darwin."
Indeed.
Note: The End of Darwinism was released by Xlibris, a print-on-demand publisher.
-Todd
** UPDATE, JULY 20, 2009**
Last week, on July 15th, Washington Post columnist and former Bush Administration speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote a glowing piece on Dr. Francis Collins, President Obama’s nominee to head the National Institutes of Health.
While some I.D. advocates are troubled by Dr. Collins’ comments about evolution, that is precisely why Mr. Gerson is so favorable toward him.
"Collins's appointment says something good about the maturity of modern evangelicalism, which is starting to abandon some of its least productive debates with modernity.David Klinghoffer, for one, takes issue with Dr. Collins’ “maturity” and “peacemaking.”
Criticisms of evolution, rooted in 19th-century controversies, have done little more than set up religious young people for entirely unnecessary crises of faith as they encounter scientific knowledge.
In the running conflict of modern biology and evangelicalism, Collins is a peacemaker."
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