A Contrast of Wisdoms

God's wisdom: I will take the most hideous, humiliating, and vile instrument of torture and death man has ever invented and turn it into the means by which you and I are reconciled. Proclaim this to the nations.

Man's wisdom: That's primitive and obscene! Rather, I must strive to find my inner goodness and do what I know is right. Follow the rules, seek the good as I define the good, earn my place in heaven.

God's wisdom: The "wisdom" of man is foolishness.

Man's wisdom: You can't be serious. The "wisdom" of God is a stumbling block and folly.

God's wisdom: I will use the despised things, the weak things, the discounted and dismissed things of the world to demonstrate my power. Whatever good you have comes from me.

Man's wisdom: Ugh. All that's beneath me. I want the credit for my goodness.

God's wisdom: None of you has understood. You believe that you have understood everything when in fact you understand nothing. The truth has not even entered your mind.

Man's wisdom: Sez you.

God's wisdom: Sez me.

Sophomoric Thoughts

How may an idea be simultaneously foolish and wise? When wisdom is discounted or dismissed because it is not understood, when one's worldview cannot account for it. This is like the man who finds a diamond but thinks it is just a piece of cut glass and throws it away. Or, when foolishness is falsely esteemed as "wisdom"--"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death" (Proverbs 14:12).

Man's pride and the finite, flawed limitations of his reason and grasp of reality make a dangerous combination, made all the more hazardous by the influence of his will. We have an enormous capacity for self-deception, for seeing reality as we wish it to be. And when we persist in blindly following our own way we will end up in a ditch.

A Study in Worldviews

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the
discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ
crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,what God has prepared for those who love him"—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:14 in the English Standard Version.

Why have I quoted this passage at length? I believe this is one of the most cogent arguments ever presented as to the governing power of worldview. It goes a long way toward explaining the current dispute over theories of biological origins. Over the next few days I'll try to unpack some of the concepts Paul discusses here.

Irreducible Complexity

This term, made famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective in this controversy) by Michael Behe and his book Darwin's Black Box, refers to the complex processes and structures within organisms, especially at the subcellular level, that cannot have come about in piecemeal or stepwise fashion. They must have manifested as a complete entity in order to provide the functions they perform.

A common analogy or illustration drawn at this point is that of the mousetrap--not one of those fancy "live-catch" gizmos, but the plain, ordinary wooden slat with the Tripwire of Death that has frequently threatened my fingers when attempting to set one. In order for a mousetrap to trap (and kill) mice, all of its various components must be in place and working properly. A mousetrap missing the spring, or the baitholder, or the tripwire hook, simply will not catch a mouse.

The problem this--irreducible complexity, not inept mousetraps--entails for Darwin's theory is that he had no concept of the inherent sophistication of intracellular systems. In his day, the cell was conceived of as a simple bag of biochemicals. We now appreciate to a much greater degree that a cell contains a highly structured, intricate, and complicated series of interdependent processes and multifacted structures. But can such sophistication be acquired, however slowly, one step at a time? A properly functioning machine requires the simultaneous presence of all its components. A lawnmower without wheels or a cutting blade doesn't cut grass very well, if at all. But if complexity is not achievable one step at a time, Darwin's theory is untenable. Darwinism insists on the stepwise, gradual, random (but conserving) process of natural selection to "build" complexity and diversity. There's the problem--if some biological entities must be in place fully formed, how do they come about by natural selection?

Advocates ("boosters," if you will) of Darwinism and Darwinian education like to trumpet their slogan that evolution is the foundation of all modern biology. Well, there is hardly anything more modern in biology than molecular biology, and textbooks on that subject routinely ignore macroevolution after giving initial lip service to the concept (usually in the preface or some such extraneous portion of the book--it's sort of like the outwardly-observant religious person saying a quick grace right away to get to the main point of eating his meal). Their authors then proceed merrily to lay out for their readers the wonderously complex and elegant world of the cell.

Scientists like to insist that they must be free to follow the evidence wherever it leads. But if that evidence suggests the influence of intelligence in the development of biological organisms, the tenacity of prior philosophical commitments to materialistic naturalism force the dismissal of such possibilities immediately. Harvard's Richard Lewontin has informed us (emphasis mine):

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who would believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

Dear me. God forbid.

In Case Your Attention Wandered...

...here, succinctly put, is the argument so far:

1. Life consists of matter and information.

2. Information is not reducible to matter. Therefore, both have to be explained. The Darwinian theory of origins is incomplete if it cannot explain life's information as well as life's material basis.

3. Specified biological information cannot be produced by chance or by chemical and physical laws.

In the Beginning Was the Word

As we have established, genes are not simply sequences of nucleotides. Those sequences carry meaning. There is a message. There is information. Yet the information is not coterminous with the medium. Just as a book is far more than the paper, ink, and glue that go into its making, the information contained in genes is more than a propitious arrangement of molecules.

The matter of a book or a strand of DNA exists as a vehicle for imparting information. As John 1:1 says, the Word was before all else in the universe. Philip Johnson has commented, "Highly complex information that is independent of matter implies an intelligent source that produced the information, and the main point of Darwinism...is to eliminate that possibility from consideration."

The fundamental flaw of reductionistic thinking is thereby unveiled. Information is not indentical to the medium of communication. By themselves, physical laws reproduce patterns with only chance variation. Crystals are complex structures, but physical forces simply produce the same patterns of crystal formation over and over again. The only variations are introduced randomly and are not conserved or replicated. Nor is any information imparted by the repetition of patterns indefinitely. A computer program that directs the printing of a single word over and over again communicates nothing of substance.

Information is logically precedent to the medium by which it is communicated. So is it sufficient to explain the development of the medium alone?

Mutations

Recall that I wrote a while back that modern biology has come to depend upon the two-part mechanism of random mutation and natural selection--that in order for evolution to proceed there must be an accumulation of positive mutations upon which natural selection acts to "guide" the subsequent diversity and complexity of living things. The structure of nucleic acids, the DNA replication process, and the process by which information is taken from DNA and made into proteins suggest a number of mechanisms for these necessary mutations.

A missense mutation occurs when a mistake is made in base-pairing such that a substitute nucleotide is placed in the sequence. This may have no effect (there is duplication of codons for most amino acids and a substitute may simply change the codon to another within the same amino acid family) or may change the amino acid specified (again, possibly to no effect if the substituted amino acid doesn't significantly change the protein; on the other hand, the biochemical properties of the substituted amino acid could radically alter the shape and function of hte protein to a greater or lesser extent).

A nonsense mutation occurs whenever a reading or transcriptional mistake produces a "stop" codon--there are three sequences that signal a halt to the protein-producing enzymes, sort of like a period in a sentence. The stunted protein that results may not work at all or may do its job poorly.

A frameshift mutation occurs when the "reading frame" of rRNA gets off track; this may occur if either a base pair gets deleted or an extraneous base pair is added to the sequence. As an example, read the following sentence taking the letters three at a time: theonereddogsatforthetwomen. What do you get if a random letter is placed between the two "d's"? "The one red xdo gsa tfo rth etw ome n." You start off just fine and then in the middle of the sentence it all goes haywire. So the sequence of amino acids is completely thrown off. Furthermore, most frameshift mutations result in a premature "stop" codon, truncating the malformed protein.

The vast majority of genetic mutations are deleterious to the organism, especially in simpler life forms where there is a lot riding on the functionality of a single cell or group of cells. This is particularly true in early development; a disasterous mutation typically results in such disordered functionality that premature death occurs. These genes lose the natural selection game--their bodies didn't live long enough even to compete on the reproduction level.

DNA and RNA Biochemistry in a Nutshell

Nucleotides are ring-shaped molecules composed of nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. There are two kinds: Purines such as adenine and guanine that are composed of two rings, and pyrimidines such as thymidine and cytosine (uracil substitutes for thymidine in RNA). The chemistry of these molecules is such that cytosine and guanine form base pairs via hydrogen bonding and adenine forms base pairs with either thymidine or uracil. To make a nucleic acid, a nucleotide is affixed to a ringed sugar molecule (ribose or deoxyribose). Nucleic acids can be "strung" together like beads by means of phosphate molecules that link the sugar moieties to each other.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is double-stranded. The two strands are complimentary to each other in sequence but reversed in polarity. Only one of the strands is the reading (information-bearing) strand. Ribonucleic acid (RNA), on the other hand, is single-stranded, slightly different in chemical composition from DNA, and it exists in three forms in the cell. Messenger RNA is the transcription product that forms when the DNA sequence is "read." Ribosomal RNA is found in the subcellular structure (organelle) called the ribosome, a two-part body that acts as the template upon which the message encoded in mRNA is "translated" into protein. Transfer RNA is a folded molecule that is attached at one pole to an amino acid and contains an "anticodon" that complimentarily matches the tripartate codon that specifies that particular amino acid.

Trust me, we're going somewhere with all this. There might be a quiz...

The Units of Genetic Information

The story of the discovery of the genetic material is fascinating but complex and cannot be covered here (interested persons should consult James Watson's The Double Helix, as informative about the personalities involved in the race to apprehend DNA as the pertinent molecular biology). For many years, it was thought that proteins performed this function. By the middle of the 20th century, however, a series of elegant experiments had proved that a little-regarded biochemical called deoxyribonucleic acid was the vehicle of heredity.

Humans have over 100,000 distinct genes. They are not just all floating around loose in the cell. The highest level of genetic organization is the chromosome, a tightly coiled complex of DNA and proteins. These bodies duplicate, diverge, and recombine in the process of cellular replication.

At one point it was believed that each gene coded for a specific protein. This idea is no longer valid. Most genes probably do code for the various proteins that are essential for the proper functioning of cells and organisms, but others are transcriptionally silent and exactly what these do has not been completely worked out. Some are regulatory, providing binding sites for proteins that influence gene replication and transcription.

Bear with me--there's a point to all this.

Gene Selectionism--the Basis of Evolution?

Gene selectionism is a theory positing that natural selection selects genes, not entire organisms. The organism functions as a vehicle for passing on superior genes. George C. Williams is credited with developing the theory, although Richard Dawkins is the idea's great popularizer, mostly via his book The Selfish Gene.

According to naturalistic explanations of origins, a gene evolved from chemical soup in the very beginning. It had two abilities: It could do something akin to eating (acquiring and incorporating new matter) and it could reproduce itself. No one knows exactly how this happened, because genes these days require an elaborate enzyme-based mechanism for reproduction and the enzymes themselves are protein products of genes. Mistakes inevitably were made in duplication, introducing variation in the "offspring." Some offspring were better "eaters" and reproducers, so these were selected for and these genes persisted while others were eventually lost. In time, some genes developed the ability to produce more complex "houses" or "bodies" for themselves, and those that got better at this had an evolutionary advantage. Thus successful genes can produce superior bodies for themselves. This is the basis for all life as we know it.

As an example of reductionism (the philosophy that all things can be taken down, or reduced, to their material bases), this is hard to beat. Dawkins has said that the discovery of DNA and the genetic code "has dealt the final, killing blow to the belief that living material is deeply distinct from nonliving material." In other words, we don't need anything but matter. From this perspective, a human being is nothing more than DNA's way of making more DNA like itself.

But is matter really all that's there? George C. Williams has given the matter (so to speak) another thought. He realized that genes are not solely physical material; they contain information, which is non-material. The gene is a vehicle for passing on information. DNA is the medium but not itself the message. This ends up being a huge idea with a lot of important implications that we will explore further later in this series.

Still More Hard--but Right--Questions

At this point, the honest theist will acknowledge the problem of suffering, otherwise known as the problem of pain or in its ultimate form the problem of evil. Materialistic naturalism, in its specific form of Darwinism, allows an escape from this problem in that we would not expect a faceless, nameless, purposeless, disinterested process to account for suffering. Suffering, within Darwinism, just is. Theists cannot dismiss this lightly. There is a lot that has been written on the subject, much that is valuable. Making an honest attempt to grapple with these difficulties may go a long way in persuading someone of naturalistic beliefs that one is a serious thinker and not someone to disregard.

Then again, they may simply consign you to the ranks of the ignorant unwashed for having the temerity to question Darwinism in the first place.

An ancillary problem to which I've already dedicated some space here is the "problem" of faith. The false dichotomy between faith and reason that has marred so much of the thinking on this subject over the past two hundred years simply must be destroyed and swept out of the way of constructive discussion. We must press the issue of worldview, foundational assumptions, and axioms. Even the committed materialistic naturalist has to admit, when pressed, that he has no proof for his basic assumptions and that, indeed, he takes some things "on faith."

More Hard--but Right--Questions

Just as it is improper to quote a source selectively--and thereby often distort what the author actually intended to communicate--it is wrong to use evidence selectively. There is a large difference between testing a theory against the evidence and using only that evidence that advances one's hypothesis. In this regard, the use of the fossil record by Darwinists has not been above board, as some honest Darwinists admit. It is right to ask for testing of assertions made by scientists. Of course, this goes both ways. The critic of Darwinism must himself adhere to the highest standards of reasoning and fairness to the data when debating the issues.

Further to this point, we must be careful as well to distinguish between intelligent and non-intelligent causes. Recall how Darwin himself cited examples of selective breeding as illustrative of natural selection and, speaking broadly, of evolution. Yet selective breeding is about as far from Darwin's concept of natural selection as one can get, for it is a purposeful, directed, and protected process. There is a mind behind selective breeding. According to the Darwinists, there must not be a mind behind evolution. Evolutionist Ted Berra has quite properly been called out for using the "evolution" of American sports cars as an illustration of the process that he purports goes on in nature, seemingly forgetful of all those engineers that designed those cars.

Asking the Hard--but Right--Questions

The foundational assumption of science as it has been defined (by thought leaders in natural science and science education) for the past two centuries is methodological naturalism--the process by which one conducts one's investigations without consideration of the possibility of anything outside nature. The material universe is approached as though it is a closed box. The only explanations allowed for what transpires in nature are those contained within nature itself. Whatever the procedural merits of such an approach, it is a short step from methodological naturalism to philosophical naturalism, the mindset that nature is really all there is. In biology, there is the assumption that evolution must be true because there is no naturalistic alternative. Biologists assume the creative power of natural selection because there is no naturalistic alternative. While biologists may well deserve respect as experts in biology, and indeed their contributions to our understanding of the complexity and diversity of biological processes are of exceeding great value, they have no right to impose a philosophy on the rest of society. A rigorous attention to one's starting principles and the ability to distinguish between unproveable axioms and testable hypotheses (and the data required to make the test) are crucial to competent thinking.

From the beginning we must insist on good definitions adhered to consistently. Bait-and-switch equivocation will not do. We should never permit persons--as happens all too frequently--to make their terms out of rubber, designed to stretch or shrink at will. In this debate, we must learn at a minimum to distinguish between the phenomena characterized as microevolutionary and those that fall under the classification of so-called macroevolution--illegitimate extrapolations from what is perceived to happen on a much smaller scale.

And here is where we must take a closer look at natural selection. Is it capable of doing everything required of it in Darwin's theory, as originally stated or since modified? Biology has been unable so far to come up with any alternative to the two-part mechanism of random mutation and natural selection. But the evidence is sorely lacking that this mechanism has the creative power required to account for the diversity and complexity of all life. Appeals to examples of microevolution as demonstrating the "fact" of macroevolution must be challenged because of the (often unrecognized) category error.

More in this vein tomorrow.

Honest Debate or Culture War?

If the controversy over creation and evolution were actually an honest debate, the issue would probably not be nearly as rancorous as it has become. Because the contemporary situation is practically a reverse of that depicted in Inherit the Wind, however, the "debate" has become a war. In the Tennessee of the 1920s, it was fundamentalist orthodoxy that tried to silence advocates of Darwinism and science education and persecuted those who resisted. Today it is the self-appointed protectors of established scientific orthodoxy who brook no criticism; their allies in the media control the microphone, and so Darwinism's critics get no fair hearing.

Why is debate disallowed? Much of it comes down to worldview. Defenders of materialistic naturalism or "scientism" sincerely believe in the rightness of their opinions and the pre-eminence of "reason" or rationality that they contrast to "faith" (a synonym for irrationality in their thinking), or they really want there to be no God (Romans 1:18 ff.) and materialistic naturalism permits them to deny God. No one ever seems to consider that suppression of honest debate is actually bad for science, as the history of science itself teaches. Perhaps the favorite historical example used by people to warn against the influence of religion over science is the treatment of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Church. The boogeyman priests held up the progress of science by their persecution of a man who simply tried to follow the facts--this is how the story gets told. And yet Galileo's story is really that of a man with a minority viewpoint challenging the received scientific orthodoxy of his day, a man trying to point out that the facts are at variance with accepted ideas, that worldview has controlled interpretation of truth. Sound familiar? Precisely the same thing is happening today; the priests have simply exchanged clerical vestments for lab coats.

Fire Up the Baloney Detector

A "baloney detector" is simply the ability to think critically and to recognize deliberate misleading or unintentional mistakes in reasoning or argumentation. Carl Sagan coined the term in his book The Demon-Haunted World.

The following is a selected series of baloney slices--logical fallacies and irrational or incorrect arguing. Many can be understood as very human attempts to shore up cherished core beliefs.

1. Selective use of evidence. Any attempt to explain reality should try to account for all the data. It is wrong—and poor science—to appeal just to the evidence that fits your theory. It is wrong to suppress data that contradicts or does not fit your theory. It is even more wrong to “fill in the gaps” with supposition and present it as fact.

2. Appeals to authority. While human authorities may be (and frequently are) correct in their opinions and explanations, they are not guaranteed to be so. Per Sagan: “In science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.” A well-designed experiment trumps any pronouncement of an expert. In fact, the history of science is rife with examples of so-called experts whose dogmatic statements have been overturned by the results of experimental demonstration (although this did not always defeat the “experts” immediately).

3. Ad hominem arguments. There are several different types of ad hominem arguments; some are valid, but the one under consideration here is not. This is an attempt to discredit an argument by impugning the character of the one making the argument. Of course, it is legitimate to point out bias, for that has a direct effect on the validity of an argument.

4. Straw man arguments. These are deliberate distortions or misrepresentations of the argument of one’s opponent, often in order to make it easier to defeat the argument (or seem to). This is a dishonest attempt to maintain the appearance of superiority in a debate.

5. Begging the question/circularity. A cardinal logical fallacy—assuming one’s conclusion, or assuming the very point under debate. This can be deceptively easy to do when the debate centers on a conflict in worldview, as we have a hard time loosing ourselves from our fundamental assumptions and axioms.

6. Lack of testability. One of the basic characteristics of a truly scientific hypothesis is testability or falsifiability—it must be subject to verification or disqualification by experiment. Many things that scientists say are outside of this realm. Now, a statement may easily be true but not falsifiable. This is characteristic of axioms. The problem with evolution is that it has become axiomatic for most biologists, true by definition, and therefore not subject to question. The theory is no longer framed in such terms that it is at risk of falsification (unlike Darwin’s original proposal).

7. Vague language and equivocation. A failure carefully to define one’s terms and imprecise use of language such that words have one meaning here and another there without making a redefinition. In the evolution debate, the most important initial task is to establish a precise meaning for “evolution.” Hardly anybody has a problem with so-called microevolution, or the ability of organisms to change and adapt to environmental pressures. Recall the discussion about selective breeding. This is valid as an example of microevolution (although not of a non-directed, purposeless process, because intelligent design is all over it) but not of macroevolution.

8. Personal bias. This is so basic to human temperament that one has to take extra steps to avoid it. We all naturally want our beliefs to “check out,” to conform to reality. One must constantly guard against the temptation to put the best spin on the evidence or automatically accept outcomes that give one the desired outcome.

Three Stumbles

The debate over Darwinism is frequently lost by persons taking an opposing view right at the outset because of some fundamental mistakes in perception about the terms of the debate. Philip Johnson has identified three critical errors we must learn to avoid.

1. We're only arguing about length of time. Emphatically, no. While it is true that there is a debate within the Christian community regarding old versus young earth creationism, to characterize the difficulty with evolution as merely a matter of the age of the earth is highly misleading. Instead, the concept of Darwinism seeks to do away with God altogether. Witness this 1995 statement by the National Association of Biology Teachers: "The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments." Note well the emphasis on unsupervised and impersonal--there is to be no allowance for God at all. And do not neglect the imprecise use of "chance" in that statement either, assigning creative power to a non-entity (chance has no being and it is not a thing; it is a useful but abstract mathematical concept related to probabilities). Here is an another definition, this one put forward by George Gaylord Simpson: "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind." No purpose (there's that blasted teleology again) and no mind. The entire approach of modern biology is founded on naturalism, the philosophy that the material universe is all there is. God is automatically excluded from the start. The theist of whatever stripe who enters the debate has been given three strikes before he even opens his mouth.

2. God made the laws and then retired. Allowing momentarily for the disqualified idea of God, this argument permits God as the starter or creator of the natural process, which is then left to function on its own. The analogy of the clockmaker is often invoked, which is a stand-in for deism. But this is not the God of Christianity, who remains active and involved with his creation. Practically speaking, what is the difference between a God who goes away after initiating creation and no God at all?

3. Erect a wall of separation between faith and reason. Cannot faith and reason simply be two different ways of looking at the same reality? No, primarily because there is assumed here a wrong definition of faith, that of belief divorced or apart from, despite, or contrary to the evidence. Biblical faith is trust based upon the established and demonstrated character of the God who keeps his promises. But if faith is used in the former, erroneous sense, it is no wonder that scientists consider this irrational. It allows them to lump Christianity together with astrology and the Tooth Fairy. A Christian who accepts a false dichotomy between faith and reason abandons the field of rational debate at the start and has already lost.

A Fictionalized Version of the Scopes Trial, Indeed

Comparing the plot summary of Inherit the Wind with the historical synopsis I provided earlier should make the numerous historical inaccuracies of the play readily apparent. And perhaps that would be altogether fine--as already observed, the authors' intent was to criticize McCarthyism and not necessarily to promote Darwinism--if the play and the movie had not taken on a life of their own in the public mind.

The real theme of the play is the modernist understanding of freedom. An enlightened society should throw off the shackles of restrictive, authoritarian forms of thought. Human reason should be unfettered, to follow the facts wherever they lead. Lawrence and Lee identified conservative Christianity (or their caricature of it) that retains a regard for the Bible as an accurate historical record with the McCarthyism of their own era.

But the accuracy of the events depicted in the play and movie hardly matter. To most who have seen either this is the way they think of the Scopes Trial and how the two sides were constituted. It illustrates well the power of the microphone--those who control the means of communication (demonstrated just as well in the 1920s as now) control the debate. The way the controversy is cast by the media largely determines the shape of the debate. So long as the Darwinists and their journalistic allies control the microphone, opposing views will have very little success getting a fair hearing.

Art Imitates Life: The Phenomenon of "Inherit the Wind"

Inherit the Wind was written in the mid-1950s by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (for the history-challenged, not the famous Confederate general). It was not specifically intended to be a faithful dramatization of the Scopes Trial or even to promote the truth of evolution per se. Rather, it was a veiled critique of McCarthyism. But that little detail has been lost in the ensuing years, especially as the controversy over creation and evolution flared back up again and proponents of Darwinism sized on the play (and especially the movie version, produced in 1960) as a vehicle for warning the public of the dangers for science of ignorant religious fundamentalism.

In brief, the play concerns one Bert Cates, a handsome young science teacher caught by angry local leaders in the illegal act of teaching evolution to Hillsboro high school students. Bert is in love with Rachel Brown, the daughter of a fiery bigoted preacher. The famous antievolution crusader and former presidential candidate Matthew Harrison Brady arrives to prosecute the case. Hillsboro welcomes him with open arms. Hardened reporter E. L. Hornbeck of the Baltimore Herald arrives to offer acid reflections on the developing spectacle; he takes special glee in skewering the townsfolk for their mindless religiosity. Brady is characterized as a genial but pompous, gluttonous windbag who is not above manipulating Rachel into making certain confidences that he will use against Bert in the trial. All the hoopla is interrupted by the arrival of Henry Drummond, a principled defender of the oppressed, to act as defense counsel. His reception in Hillsboro is not nearly so friendly. Drummond is given all the good lines. The defense cause is pure and noble but in an impossible legal position. Brady forces Bert to admit to having taught evolution in the classroom, some reluctant students are made to corroborate this confession, and even Rachel is brought to the stand to weepily document Bert's heterodox opinions. His scientific witnesses disallowed by the court, Drummond brilliantly maneuvers Brady into taking the stand to give "expert testimony" on the Bible. The ensuing exchange goes all Drummond's way as he succeeds in flummoxing and embarrassing Brady and makes of him a laughingstock. But the foregone guility verdict is returned. Embarrassed civic leaders convince the judge to impose a small fine, which Bert in principle refuses to pay. He and Rachel, who has learned the errors of her narrow ways of thinking, leave town to get married. Brady lets loose with an incoherant rant that ends in a physical collapse and his death off-stage. At the end, Drummond is left alone in the courtroom. He takes a Bible in one hand and a copy of Origin in the other, weighing them as if in a balance. He then shrugs and places both books in his briefcase as the curtain falls.

The reader may compare this plot synopsis with the historical account of the actual Scopes Trial I wrote last week.

Doug Thiessen, Now with the Lord

This blog began almost two years ago as an exploration of the Westminster Confession of Faith. I had a lot of help with the material I posted, none more valuable than the contributions of a man who co-taught the adult Sunday school class at my church that formed the basis for the series.

In my 27 August 2007 I paid tribute to Doug by name. It is my sad duty to do so again, this time on the occasion of his death two days ago in a skiing accident. This dedicated servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, this lover of the Word enscripurated and made flesh, went to his eternal reward while still in the very prime of his vigorous young life. He leaves a loving wife and five children, the youngest of which was born just two months ago. She will know her father chiefly by the fruits of his life.

When Doug went out on that mountain Friday I doubt very much that he knew he would not come down again. But I know he was ready when the Lord called him home.

We'll pick up again with the series on Darwinism tomorrow. Today we should just take a moment to reflect.

The Drama Unfolds

Following his indictment, John Scopes was free--never in danger of being jailed--and traveled to New York, where he met with members of the executive board of the ACLU. Back in Dayton, he continued to live at his boarding house and interacted freely with townspeople and all the visitors gathered for the spectacle. He was friendly with several young men on the prosecution team. Bryan and Darrow were well-received by the town. Several other well-known attorneys joined the defense team. The trial itself lasted only a few days. Some students were called to testify; Scopes himself was never put on the stand, because his grasp of Darwinism was rudimentary at best and the defense team did not want to risk embarrassment under cross-examination. So the real drama of the thing was in the exchanges between Bryan and Darrow. The former more than held his own against the latter, although his willingness at the end of the trial to take the stand as a "witness for the Bible" was ill-advised; by and large he acquitted himself well but there were a few slips that made for good, damaging sound-bites. The media coverage of the event was a travesty of journalistic integrity. Little attempt was made to capture the reality of the thing. Instead, reporters pretty much knew what their editors wanted them to write and so there was a great deal of embellishment. Some didn't even bother to attend the courtroom proceedings. Many, including Mencken, left town before the end of the trial. Ultimately, Scopes was found guilty (at the behest of Darrow, who sought grounds for appeal and was confident that the verdict would be overturned by a higher court and the Butler Act declared unconstitutional; the additional publicity would be good for his anti-religious cause) and subjected to a modest fine. He later went on to graduate school and had an active career as a geologist.



The whole affair sort of backfired for Dayton, Tennessee. The inaccurate journalistic portrait of a town full of rubes and religious bigots did not help the town. Urban skeptics were confirmed in their ill opinion of rural religious conservatives. The Scopes Trial was mostly a propaganda victory for the ACLU and others desiring to discredit religion. Its real value came in the ground it laid for an even more effective weapon in the culture war.

The Scopes Trial's Principal Players

1) John Scopes: A young math and physical education teacher who did some substitute teaching work, Scopes later recalled having subbed briefly in a science class but did not think the subject of evolution ever came up in the classroom. But he had friends who convinced him to help them initiate a legal challenge to the Butler Act.

2) The ACLU: The organization had actively sought a test case to challenge restrictions on teaching evolution in the public schools, even going so far as to advertise for possible "defendants."

3) The civic leaders of Dayton, Tennessee: Business leaders, looking for ways to revitalize the local economy, encouraged Scopes to take up the ACLU's offer to participate in a staged mock trial. They hoped the national attention the trial would bring would be good for business. Local prosecutors agreed to go along.

4) William Jennings Bryan: Populist politician, progressive icon, accomplished orator, three-time unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the United States presidency, and secretary of state in the Wilson administration. Bryan caught wind of the trial plans and volunteered to assist the prosecution. His personal interest in the case was his dismay over the way Darwinism had been used to justify unbridled capitalism and militarism. But he was not very knowledgeable regarding the scientific merits of the theory. The involvement of such a prominent national figure significantly elevated the political theater of the event.

5) Clarence Darrow: One of the leading trial lawyers in the country, Darrow was also an accomplished speaker who routinely lectured as a religious agnostic (a lawyer version of Thomas Huxley, in other words). He was fresh off the notorious Leopold and Loeb murder trial in Chicago in which he had argued the defendents should not be held responsible for their actions due to their lack of free will. He was brought in as lead counsel for the defense.

6) H. L. Mencken: The trial quickly became a media circus, which at the time meant newspapers and the "new-fangled" technology of radio. Dayton was overrun with reporters. The most famous figure was Mencken, a columnist for the Baltimore Evening Sun and a renowned curmudgeon, misanthrope, and religious skeptic. Interestingly, the Evening Sun helped underwrite Scopes's defense.

American Theater: The Scopes Trial Introduced

The intellectual climate of Europe did not have significant effects upon the United States for several decades, but in the early years of the 20th century the controversies over theological liberalism and the encroachment of scientific naturalism were becoming more strident. A group of conservative Protestant theologians published a collection of scholarly essays around 1910 called The Fundamentals in defense of basic Christian doctrine. Ironically, the term "fundamentalism" came to be associated with anti-intellectual fanaticism and slavish adherence to woodern literalism, possibly because around the same time popular American religion was characterized by revivalism and experientialism. There was unhappily also a certain amount of chicanery in preachers and evangelists, providing fodder for literary critiques such as Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry. In academic settings, well-known seminary professors who strayed far from theological orthodoxy were subjected to censure and heresy trials, although most of these bore no fruit except notoriety. Theologically liberal pastors, such as Harry Emerson Fosdick, in large metropolitan churches preached sermons advancing a humanist reinterpretation of Christianity and gained a wide following.

In many parts of the country, there was resistance to teaching Darwinism in the public schools. In Tennessee in the early 1920s lawmakers passed the Butler Act, which forbade teaching Darwinism. The governor signed the bill, doubting it would ever be enforced--in fact, it never really was--so it was really more an act of political pandering than anything. But it created an opportunity for some to advance their own agenda. The wider context was the sensational legal atmosphere that existed in the 1920s. There had been some notorious criminal trials that were followed closely by the public. The Scopes Trial fed that appetite for legal drama.

From Heresy to Dogma in Twenty Years or Less

"As is so often the case and as the history of science so amply testifies, the acceptance of new ideas is often dependent upon the influence of non-scientific factors of a social, psychological, and philosophical nature and the Darwinian revolution was no exception" (Michael Denton).

The late 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe had been characterized by political revolution and social upheaval. The exhausted ruling elites in the 19th century generally sought stability and order. The idea that change should occur gradually, seamlessly, in quiet order rather than catastrophically, was very attractive. Hence, the continuity and gradualism of Darwin's hypotheses found a welcome reception.

Victorians held as ideal the inevitability of progress. There was widespread optimism about the future--not dashed until World War I--and belief in the perfectibility of man. Darwinism propounded movement in a consistently upward direction.

The physical sciences had for over a hundred years thrown off any appeal to supernaturalism. Darwinism made it possible to link the biological sciences to the larger academic order, which incorporated naturalism and uniformitarianism. Darwinism also succeeded as an idea because there was no acceptable "scientific" (read: naturalistic) alternative. Ultimately, especially for men like Huxley, special creation was no longer tenable, or, more accurately, desirable.

Paradigm revolutions do not occur overnight. The facts were the same before and after the publication of Origin, but the changes in outlook fueled by the book as well as the contemporary intellectual climate gave a different perspective to things. What had once been unthinkable was now hardly given a second thought.

Darwinism's path was also smoothed by the several ways in which the credibility of orthodox Christianity had been undermined (to some) by German higher criticism of the Bible and a wave of theological liberalism. And emerging social and economic theories accommodated Darwinism easily. Marxism especially found common cause with Darwinism and materialism in general.

The Early Response to "On the Origin of Species"

The book sold well. It was immediately evident that Darwin's ideas contradicted orthodox Christian teaching on creation. Opposition therefore came from most clerics (although a minority not only had no problem with Darwinism but actually championed it), but the hypotheses advanced in the book also met with criticism from many scientists as well. Prominent naturalists and biological scientists such as Louis Agassiz and Rudolf Virchow disdained Darwin's ideas.

But Darwinism found a true friend in Thomas Henry Huxley, who is perhaps only second to Darwin himself as the most remarkable figure in the story of Darwinism in later 19th-century Britain. Huxley was an autodidact--having essentially no formal education, through reading he became one of the most learned men in the country. He had particular expertise in invertebrate physiology. He was one of a select few who knew of Darwin's work prior to the publication of Origin. Although not entirely convinced of its scientific merits, for he was not sure natural selection had the power required of it under the theory, he was perhaps the theory's foremost public proponent. Early in the 1860s he formed an association with seven other intellectuals, chiefly scientists, called the "X Club." Originally it was more of a social club but because of the members' mutual interests it became a speakers' and writers' bureau for the popularization of topics in science, particularly Darwinism. He formally styled himself an agnostic--in fact, he is credited with coming up with the concept, as opposed to atheism--but there is no secret that one of his prime motives for championing Darwinism was the perceived damage it did to the authority of the church and the Bible.

Natural Selection Expanded Upon

Natural selection is, to borrow an analogy, the hinge upon which modern biology turns. Put succinctly, natural selection is the process whereby actions by environmental factors to "favor" some organismal variations and "discourage" others results in the production of variation in living things and hence the rise of species by the accumulation of favorable muations over time. All of this occurs "without direction or purpose," for there is--in the view of the materialistic naturalist--no personality planning or guiding natural selection. There is no end in view. All takes place through the vehicle of randomly-occurring mutations.

The question is not whether natural selection occurs, for it really does, and it has an effect in maintaining the genetic fitness of a given population. Species avoid genetic deterioration due to natural attrition among the genetically unfit. But Darwinists claim further that natural selection has a powerful building effect that can account for all the diversity and complexity observed across the full extent of living organisms on Earth.

Notice the key role played by "time." Time is what Charles Lyell's geology theories gave to Darwin.

Now, Darwin could point to no examples of natural selection in action because none had been observed at that time. However, he drew an analogy with the practice of artificial selection engaged in by animal breeders. While this certainly illustrates the concept of variation and diversity produced over time, the analogy is misleading because breeders employ intelligence and specialized knowledge to produce and protect their charges from natural dangers, while for Darwin the key idea was that purposeless and unintelligent natural processes can substitute for intelligent design. Furthermore, highly bred individuals removed from protection will, through reproduction, revert to the wild type. Natural selection is actually a conservative force that prevents the appearance of extremes of variability. Even the breeding of domestic animals has produced no new species in the formal sense of that word; there is often a semantic failure to distinguish between strains or breeds and species. But even if a rigorous breeding process could succeed in producing a distinct new species, this is far from a demonstration that bacteria could eventuate in a fruit fly.

In fact, natural selection is a tautology. The theory predicts that the fittest organisms will produce the most offspring, yet the biological definition of "fitness" is the ability to produce more offspring. Just about any characteristic can be advantageous or disadvantageous depending upon the environmental circumstances. So natural selection becomes an all-purpose "explanation" that can account for anything and therefore explains nothing. It is non-falsifiable.

But perhaps the greatest utility to which natural selection has been put is that,as conceived by Darwin, it posits a materialistic explanation for organic variation and complexity. It excludes the unacceptable (to some) alternative of supernatural involvement. In short, as we will see when we take up the subject of the receipt of Darwin's ideas, natural selection made it possible to be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Or so thought Thomas Huxley.

Charles Darwin, the Voyage of HMS Beagle, and the Development of Darwinism

In his youth, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an indifferent student but something of an amateur naturalist, botanist, and geologist. There is a (possibly apocryphal) story that he was once out looking to add to his insect collection and found first one beetle and then another that he had to have. With both fists occupied, he then spotted yet a third desirable specimen. He attempted to solve the dilemma by popping one beetle into his mouth, freeing up a hand to grab the third. But this beetle expressed its dislike for its new environment by emitting an obnoxious fluid, causing Darwin to cough and gag so violently that he lost all three beetles.

Although originally slated for the Anglican Church, he early realized that this was not a suitable career for him. Instead, he signed on to the crew of HMS Beagle as an unpaid naturalist for a circumnavigation of the globe that would take five years. As the ship made its way around the southern tip of South America, Darwin traveled extensively through the continent's interior, examining the fossil beds and collecting biological specimens. He was impressed by the constantly changing varieties of life he saw, but his experiences in the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador were even more impressive. He encountered his famous finches there. He recognized the differences between organisms seen on the islands (which were of recent volcanic origin) and the mainland, and the differences in organisms between the islands themselves.

Upon his return to the United Kingdom, Darwin encountered the writings of Thomas Malthus, the famous "prophet of doom" who believed that the human population was expanding too rapidly and that humans would shortly exhaust available food and living space. Darwin applied his ideas to the ways in which populations of organisms are kept in check. But he was in no immediate rush to publish. He deliberated for many years on his observations and theories. Finally he was spurred into action when he learned that Alfred Russell Wallace was about to publish almost identical ideas independently conceived. And so in 1859 his magnum opus appeared--On the Origin of Species. Darwin's major ideas were not based on experimentation but on observation linked to a conceptual framework or paradigm; technically this makes his "theory" a hypothesis.

Darwin's great ideas can be succinctly summarized as:

1. Species are not immutable. This contradicts the idea prevalent at the time Origin was published that species are fixed (immutable.)

2. "Descent with modification" can account for life's diversity, all living things having descended from a very small number of common ancestors.

3. Natural selection, vulgarly expressed as "the survival of the fittest." There is much more to this idea, as we will discover shortly.

Biology before Darwin

Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher and systematizer, was the first naturalist. He perceived a hierarchy of all living things, with man at the top. His ideas dominated medieval European thinking in the natural sciences for centuries. Married to Aristotle’s concept of hierarchy was the Christian doctrine of special creation. Naturalists believed that all the kinds/species of living things originally came into existence in their present form as a direct consequence of the creative activity of God. Accordingly, there are no necessary relationships of any species to any others historically, meaning no common ancestors.

Following the Renaisssance and Reformation, natural science in the West began to come into its own. While biology was a relatively late entry in this revolution, there were several 18th-century investigators who did important work:
1. Carolus Linnaeus (dates uncertain), a Swedish taxonomist, who remains hugely influential down to this day for his categorization of living organisms. He maintained belief in special creation.
2. Leclerc de Buffon (1701-1788) was an advocate for change over time, in this case by degeneration (loss of properties). In this he adopted a Platonic view of biology (fall from original ideals).
3. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Charles’ grandfather. He posited historical connections between species and the role of competition in the development of species. He thought that the environment may induce changes in animals and that these changes might possibly be propagated through generations (inheritance of traits).
4. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was the first systematizer of evolution. In 1801 he proposed the descent of species, including man. He saw life as progressing in increasing complexity. He proposed the inheritance of acquired characteristics (for which his ideas were ridiculed) and a universal creative principle or “force” that moved everything in the direction of greater complexity.

But biology did not develop in a vacuum. Geological theory exerted an enormous influence on the thinking of biologists.
1. James Hutton (1726-1797) originated the concept of uniformitarianism in opposition to catastrophism (change through sudden violent upheaval). According to Hutton, changes in the Earth took place slowly and gradually via the same processes that can be observed today--erosion, sedimentary deposition, etc. The idea relies upon a very old Earth. Change is the normal state of affairs rather than a static system interrupted periodically by sudden change.
2. William Smith (1769-1839) was an English surveyor who studied geological strata and correlated them to the fossil record.
3. Charles Lyell (1797-1875) was a geologist and author of Principles of Geology, a two-volume work that Charles Darwin had with him on the Beagle. Lyell supported uniformitarianism and an old Earth.

Life on Planet Earth

As a mental exercise, try to characterize the phenomenon of life as it exists on this planet. Some applicable ideas: Diversity, variation, change, complexity, interrelationships, vigor. How can one account for all of this? Where did it come from? Where might it be going?

Not surprisingly, there have been many who have attempted to answer these questions. But before we consider the history of such ideas, a few definitions will be useful.

A species is a group of organisms that actually or potentially interbreed and are reproductively isolated from all other such groups.

Evolution (that highly-charged word) refers to change over time, with the presumption of "progress" or increase in complexity and diversity and the acquisition of distinguishing characteristics. I find that "progress" is quite often in the eye of the beholder, subject to the observer's own worldview. Similarly in contemporary Western culture "progess" is frequently a codeword for "that which I prefer to see happen," or quite simply "the good."

The theory of evolution--whatever that means--has been described by one science educator as "the greatest unifying theory of biology" that allows us to understand differences and similarities between organisms, that explains the appearance of purpose (no teleology here, please--we're Scientists), and that emphasizes the dynamic relationship between structure and function. That the theory bears such a weight on its shoulders goes a long way to explaining why it is so vigorously defended by its adherents and why alternative explanations for origins are often dismissed, derided, or fought with passion.

New Year, New Start, New Topic: Darwinism

The ensuing series of blog posts I have adapted from a class I taught in the first part of 2008. It was a kind of sequel or continuation of a class on the broad subject of creation and evolution that had spent practically all of its time concentrating on matters of cosmology and geology; when it came to the biological aspects of the subject, the original discussion leader believed himself inadequately prepared to discuss those matters and so I assumed the mantle. What you will read here over the next weeks (possibly months) are distillations of class discussions largely taken from my teaching notes.

By way of introduction, consider the current cultural controversy over the issue of origins as encapsulated by our car decorations. Most of my readers will know about those silver appliques often found on the rear of motor vehicles in this country that look like minimalist drawings of a fish. Sometimes within the "body" of this fish representation are the letters "JESUS" or the Greek "IXΘYS," an acrostic of ancient origin taken from the first letters of the phrase in Greek that means "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior." The acrostic in Greek spells the word for "fish." So it was the practice of early Greek-speaking Christians to employ the symbol of a fish as a succinct confession of faith. Contemporary American Christians seem to have picked up the practice again.

What is somewhat ironically amusing is that persons who prefer the modern "scientific" explanation for the origin of life on this planet have, in some instances, taken up the gauntlet and affixed to the rears of their vehicles a similar minimalist fish-like device, only this one has a pair of stick-figure legs and feet under the body and often the letters "DARWIN" within the body of the fish. This is undoubtedly supposed to be humorously challenging, maybe even a bit pugnacious and aggressive, toward the benighted souls who still believe in things like God and creation. But it has always struck me as archly funny that in order to assert the supposed superiority of their theory of origins they co-opted a religious symbol that makes no sense when taken out of its Christian context. Even more ironic is that this act underscores the essentially religious nature of the controversy, although the typical philosophical materialist would likely angrily deny this. It will be a major purpose of this blog series to flesh out the truth of that last sentence.