Wheat-dogg's World

The Expelled Leader’s Guide veers away from examining the scientific evidence “against” evolution and toward the social implications of evolution on page 12. Beginning with insinuations that only some kind of anti-religious conspiracy can keep such a weak theory as evolution in place, the Guide proceeds to link Darwin’s evolution to racism, Adolf Hitler, and eugenics.

Guide:

As we have seen, there is strong evidence from several areas of science for intelligent design — and equally strong evidence raising serious doubts about Darwinism. Why, then, isn’t the scientific establishment more open to allowing genuine discussion and debate over Darwinism?

Could it be that there is more propping up Darwin’s theory than the mere evidence?

The Guide then offers data from a 1998 survey of biologist members of the National Academy of Science, of whom 95% identified themselves as atheist or agnostic. It also quotes results from an unnamed 2003 survey of “leading evolutionists,” of whom 87% denied the existence of God and 88% did not believe in the afterlife.

Comments:
As we have seen, there is NO strong evidence for intelligent design or against evolution, at least in this Guide. The rhetorical question about the “scientific establishment” sets up an adversarial relationship that does not exist. Two of the scientists quoted in the Guide itself, Michael Denton and Lynn Margulis, are sharp critics of evolutionary theory, yet are still employed and their criticism seriously considered. Science is all about debate and discussion of scientific ideas. The problem is that ID is not scientific.

For the 1998 survey, the NAS asked 517 member biologists to respond. Only half answered the surveys, so the survey may not be representative of the Academy’s members or biologists as whole. Self-selecting surveys (online polls, for example) do not elicit statistically valid population samples. It may that only non-believers considered the survey worth their while. No substantive conclusions can be drawn from this survey, then.

The 2003 survey was probably the Cornell Evolution Project‘s work. In this survey, 272 evolutionary biologists were asked to participate in the survey; 151 responded — a 55.7% response rate. Half of those were from the US.

• Asked “Do you consider yourself a religious person?” about 84% said no.
• Asked “Whice best describes your religion?” about 87% had no answer.
• Asked about their belief systems, the results were:

No answer 16.11%
Other 3.36%
Agnostic 16.78%
Naturalist 22.15%
Atheist 41.61%

Not surprisingly, given these results, slightly more than 79% said they did not believe in the traditional conception of God, and 70% said they saw no real evidence for God’s existence. As for the afterlife, 88% denied its existence.

This question and the response to it perhaps leads ID proponents to wonder about the morality of “evolutionists”:
“I believe that the findings of evolutionary biology can influence and alter morality.” 66.44 said Yes

Clearly, these biologists are non-believers. No argument there. Whether they represent all biologists is an open question.

Guide:
The writers now allege that “Darwinism” is a kind of secular religion for its proponents. They quote Oxofrd biologist Richard Dawkins, a sharp critic of creationism and ID: “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

The Guide now insinuates that these non-believing Darwinists are prejudiced against ID.

Given the anti-religious views of many leading Darwinists, it’s certainly possible that some of the current close-mindedness in the scientific community about intelligent design and evolution stems from personal prejudice rather than the facts of science.

Whatever the cause, the present dogmatism of much of the scientific establishment regarding evolution and ID is a tragedy for genuine science.

The Guide then quotes (twice!) Sören Lövtrup, a professor of zoophysiology at the University of Umea, Sweden:

“I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune, if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology. I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?”

Comments:
The same 2003 survey that pinpointed those biologists’ religious non-belief also asked them if they allowed their personal beliefs and morality to intrude on their teaching of evolution. The majority said no, but this result is conveniently omitted from the Guide. Alleging prejudice is a cheap shot and an effort to set up in the reader’s mind a false adversarial relationship between “Darwinists” and IDists. Evolutionary biologists reject ID on scientific grounds, since ID is not a scientific theory. Yet ID proponents would like their audience to believe ID IS science.

Dawkins was actually commenting on the role evolution plays in explaining complex biological design. A more complete quote is:

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: “I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn’t a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.” I can’t help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
– Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, page 6

The Lövtrup quote would appear to characterize him as rejecting evolution completely. In fact, his statement refers specifically to the role of mutations in evolution. Like Margulis, Lövtrup doubts “micromutations” could have a large influence on evolution. He is categorically not an IDist.

Micromutations do occur, but the theory that these alone can account for evolutionary change is either falsified, or else it is an unfalsifiable, hence metaphysical theory. I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: … I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen? …

The quote comes from his 1987 book, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth. In it, he does not deny the reality of evolution, but he does question the processes many biologists insist cause evolution.

Lövtrup is still employed, by the way.

Guide:
Continuing appeal to authority to question evolution, the Guide provides a link to a statement signed by 700 scientists:

“We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

Comments:
Most of the scientists appending their names to this statement are not biologists, and include medical doctors and engineers. The statement is fairly innocuous, since any sensible scientist would want to encourage further examination of any theory. That’s kinda their job, y’know? Being skeptical is part of being a scientist. These same signers probably quail at the idea that an anti-scientific movement is using their names to foster a non-scientific concept.

We now change directions again, and enter the shadowy world of “Darwinism leads to racism.”

Guide:
A quote from Robert N. Proctor, author of Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under Hitler (1988):

Prior to Darwin, it was difficult to argue against the Judeo- Christian conception of the unity of man, based on the single creation of Adam and Eve. Darwin’s theory suggested that humans had evolved over hundreds of thousands, even millions of years, and that the races of men had diverged while adapting to the particularities of local conditions. The impact of Darwin’s theory was enormous.

Comment:
Proctor here is referring to the idea of Social Darwinism, which flourished through Europe and the US during the late 19th and early 20th century. This movement combined the Calvinistic identification of salvation with material success with Darwin’s “survival of the fittest.” Thus the most fit to survive were those viewed as most successful, or the most moral. Simultaneously, Social Darwinists feared that evolution would mean those inferior to them could replace them, so they co-opted the concept of eugenics, popularized by Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, to weed out the “less fit.” Nazi Germany was only the most extreme example of the eugenics movement. US immigration authorities used eugenics to limit immigrants to those deemed most desirable, and eugenics books were popular in both the US and Great Britain.

But Darwin the naturalist and his theory of evolution is not responsible for Social Darwinism or Nazi Germany’s genocide of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and others the regime saw as unfit. Making that connection is like blaming Henry Ford and his assembly line for the number of fatal traffic accidents each year. Nor does this abuse of a scientific theory nullify its validity.

This same quote, taken out of context, pops up frequently on creationist and ID websites, by the way.

Nowhere do they mention the use of religion to justify racism or the slaughter of entire populations of a different religion. Racism and social “survival of the fittest” predated Darwin by thousands of years. Read your Bible.

Guide:
Darwin spoke of the “gorilla” and the “Negro” [sic] as occupying evolutionary positions between the “Baboon” and the “civilized races of man” (“Caucasian”). “At some future period,” said Darwin, “…the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.”

Comments:
The first part of the Guide’s commentary here is a false intepretation of an awkward sentence construction. The quote from Darwin’s Descent of Man (1871) is part of a lengthy discussion of the likelihood that humans and the “greater apes” — gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans — share a common ancestor, and whether humans will eventually cause the extinction of the apes. (We are, incidentally, putting serious environmental pressures on the African primates, all of whom are endangered species. In this regard, Darwin was dead right.)

As we have to do when reading 19th century authors, such as Mark Twain, we need to understand that Darwin is reflecting the common belief in Victorian England that the civilized countries were superior to the “uncivilized” cultures in Britain’s colonies, and that whites were superior to blacks and Aborigines. It is a misuse of this quote, which IDists and creationists recycle endlessly, to characterize Darwin as a racist, or his theory as being responsible for racism. Most people living in the 1870s were, by today’s standards, racist. They included many Christians.

The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies- between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae- between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked,* will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

* Anthropological Review, April, 1867, p. 236

The “breaks” Darwin mentions are disconnections between species in the evolutionary process. Our “nearest allies” in this passage are the other primates.

Guide:
Continuing in this smear campaign against evolution, we read:

American Darwinian biologist Edward East, a Harvard professor and member of the National Academy of Sciences, asserted in 1924 that “wherever the negro has been placed he has… failed miserably and utterly by the white man’s standards,” and that such a record supported the view of British evolutionist Karl Pearson that “the negro lies nearer to the common stem” of man’s evolutionary tree “than the European.”

Comments:
This quote dates from 80 years ago, when it was still widely accepted that whites were racially superior to everyone else. The misuse of science was a justification for denying blacks, Asians and others civil rights, education and opportunities in the US and Great Britain. Evolutionists were not the only ones ascribing to those beliefs. Few do now.

Guide:
This factoid mentions the outrageous claims by one H. Klaatsch that the different races descended from different primates: the blacks from the gorillas, the whites from the chimpanzees and Asians from the orangutans. Klaatsch also claimed that Neandertals and gorillas have “a close biological affinity” to African blacks.

Comments:
Hermann Klaatsch (1863-1916) was a German physician and anthopologist who studied the anatomies of primates, humans and neandertals. Ironically (for our purposes here), he favored the strict separation of religion and science.

An influential anthropologist in his time, Klaatsch was nevertheless completely wrong about the independent descent of human races from different primates, which scientists even in his day recognized. He based his claims about the “biological affinity” of gorillas, neandertals and blacks on flawed anatomical investigations, not on Darwin’s theory of evolution. Modern genetic evidence proves Klaatsch’s claims were completely wrong.

By the way, if the purpose of Expelled is to criticize modern science, why are we dredging up quotations from crackpot scientists who died almost a century ago?

Guide:
The Guide quotes an entry in the 1920 (!) Encyclopedia Britannica about the “inherent mental inferiority” of the blacks.

Comments:
Are we projecting here? First, entries in any 1920 encyclopedia are pointless to discuss today, and this particular one has nothing at all to do with Darwin or evolution. It’s a throwaway quote to convince the reader of the “evils” of evolution. (At least, I hope the reader thinks racism is evil …)

Guide:
Now we bring in Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, who published articles by one of Hitler’s henchmen, Ernst Rudin, and who had started something called, “The Negro Project,” to eliminate the black population.

Comments:
These allegations are unfortunately true. Details about The Negro Project are here. Rudin (1874-1952) was a physician and eugenicist whose work was co-opted by the Nazis to support their programs of genocide. Sanger was also a eugenicist. Part of her motivation to support birth control was to limit who got to breed. Planned Parenthood today has a more enlightened mission.

Still, are we projecting again? Is Darwin guilty by association with Sanger and Rudin? He developed a useful theory that others misused to support their prejudices. That connection does not invalidate the theory.

Guide:
For no apparent reason, the Guide mentions IQ tests and how IQ ranges of the races are all pretty close to one another. It’s a non sequitur, since Darwin predates IQ tests, unless you take into consideration the quote from DNA co-discoverer James Watson featured prominently on this page.

In a Times interview October 17, 2007, James Watson (Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA) used evolution concepts in his racist remarks about the intelligence of Africans. Citing genetic differences, he claimed there is no reason to anticipate intellectual capacities have evolved equally if they are evolving in separate geographies. In the interview Dr. Watson also claimed that he hoped that everyone was equal but countered, “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.”

Comments:
Watson got in loads of trouble with this quote, shockingly close to the IQ-race connections made by another Nobel prize winner, William Shockley, some 30 years earlier. Watson later recanted his statement, but was forced to leave his post at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories on Long Island anyway.

So Watson is only a few degrees removed from the other scientists quoted on this page, in terms of his racism. How does that invalidate evolution? Saying the Sun revolves around the Earth does not invalidate the truth that Earth revolves around the Sun.

It’s another attempt at guilt by association, a tactic Sen. Joe McCarthy was famous for during the 1950s Red Scare.

Next: How evolution leads to moral depravity, abortion, Nazism and the end of religion and civilization as we know them.