Intelligent Design Creationism Evolves Again Taner Edis Truman State University www2.truman.edu/~edis

2004Intelligent Design2 Recent History u Religiously motivated anti-evolutionary thought has always accompanied evolution. u Early on, old earth, or even evolution as progressive development was acceptable among many theological conservatives. u Young-earth creationist revival in mid-20C. u Today, “Intelligent Design” creationism is in the news –– Ohio 2002, Missouri 2004.

2004Intelligent Design3 Landmark Books –– YEC u Though having an anti- intellectual reputation, the history of creationism can be summarized through landmark books. u Whitcomb & Morris Revive YEC.

2004Intelligent Design4 1990’s –– ID Begins u 1991: Phillip Johnson, Berkeley law professor. Leading ID spokesman. u Not fundamentalist in tone, looking for broad- based opposition to evolution. u Issue: naturalism.

2004Intelligent Design5 “Irreducible complexity” u 1996: Michael Behe, Lehigh biochemist. Leading ID biologist. Catholic. u Accepts common descent––against Darwinian mechanism. u ID movement.

2004Intelligent Design6 “Specified complexity” u 1998-now: William Dembski, mathematician and philosopher. Leading theorist of ID. u ID irreducible form of explanation, distinct from chance & necessity. u ID is a revolution.

2004Intelligent Design7 Books, books, more books u Dembski has 3 books, 4+ edited books on ID. u Not just biology but physics, AI, theology, morality, law, … u Broad, “information- theoretic” objections to naturalistic evolution.

2004Intelligent Design8 Dembski’s filter

2004Intelligent Design9 The “Wedge Strategy” u ID politically ambitious. Well-funded. Discovery Institute. “Wedge strategy”––ID dominance by Many media, popular, and scientific productions foreseen. u ID is involved in battles over evolution in secondary education. u Politically tied to Religious Right. Pre- modern ideals (Forrest & Gross 2003).

2004Intelligent Design10 Intellectual Creationism? u YEC too sectarian, too absurd-appearing. u ID downplays age of earth, scripture, even God. It appeals to grand theistic themes; relies on intuition that order comes from intelligent design. Tries for a broad base. u Could appeal beyond scientific community? u Why such a narrow constituency for ID? Why a failure in intellectual life?

2004Intelligent Design11 Islamic Creationism u Looking at Muslim world puts ID in perspective. u Outright creationism is popular and successful. Harun Yahya in Turkey. u Obvious design in nature.

2004Intelligent Design12 ID & Muslim high culture u Creationism and design in nature still part of Muslim high culture. u Religious intellectuals, especially those into “Islamization of science,” attack Darwinian evolution. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Osman Bakar, Muzaffar Iqbal… u The religious high culture takes an generic ID-like view of nature.

2004Intelligent Design13 Grand Themes u ID, Muslim and Western, is not centered on biology for its own sake. It is concerned with the irreducibility of intelligence, of creativity. It defends mind-matter dualism, a hierarchical view of nature. Grand themes of Near Eastern monotheism. u ID no longer implicit in Western intellectual culture. Need to reestablish it. Science!

2004Intelligent Design14 War of the theologians u ID attracts many religiously conservative philosophers: Dembski, Plantinga, Meyer, Moreland, Nelson, etc. etc. u Theological liberals notably cold. Few examples of sympathy to ID. u Still, some examples of ID-like themes of information, top-down causality surface among liberals.

2004Intelligent Design15 Information from above u Example: John Haught, God as “the ultimate source of the novel informational patterns available to evolution.” u Also John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke.

2004Intelligent Design16 Common concerns u Could ID bridge the conservative-liberal gap in theology? Shared themes about top- down causation, purpose, information, etc. u ID does not necessarily reject all evolution. Common descent ~OK. Guidance and progressivity appeals to liberals. u Some liberals willing to endorse scientific fringe. E.g. parapsychology.

2004Intelligent Design17 Never the twain… u But neither side seeks a common ground. u ID debate falls into old creation/evolution pattern: conservative culture warriors against liberals as best allies of science and modernity. u There is a cultural split; the dispute over science is just one point of contention. u Even so, what scientists think is decisive.

2004Intelligent Design18 “Here we go again!” u Reaction to ID within scientific community: overwhelmingly dismissive. u ID seen as nothing but old-fashioned creationism revived and given a more intellectual-appearing veneer. u ID attracts attention as a nuisance for education, not as a new idea to debate. è ID’ers need excuses for this rejection.

2004Intelligent Design19 Interfering philosophers u Scientists not overly anti- religious. But science has a naturalistic bias? u Robert Pennock: science must follow methodological naturalism (MN). Excludes ID, protects liberal religion.

2004Intelligent Design20 Is science naturalistic? u Philosophers dictating what science must be do not have a great track record. u Historically strange: Biologists adopted evolution as better explanation––they didn’t suddenly decide creation was not allowed. u Explanations involving design and intent not odd, e.g. in history. Nothing wrong with ID in biology as a hypothesis.

2004Intelligent Design21 Practical naturalism u Philosophical ID supporters attack MN, as illegitimately excluding ID. u They’re right. Politically bad move as well. u Better view: Naturalism has been successful in recent history. The best-supported broad description of the world. We expect this to continue––naturalistic ideas are favored. u ID could succeed in science. But difficult.

2004Intelligent Design22 How could ID succeed? u ID’s critics have to learn ID to criticize it effectively. Critics coming over gives boost to new ideas––including Darwinian evolution in its time. u Young Turks might buck establishment. u Scientists would be impressed most by new research driven by ID, which produces results not anticipated by evolutionists.

2004Intelligent Design23 What has ID achieved? u Scientific critics aplenty; no converts. u No Young Turks in research. u Plenty of popular outreach, but no scientific production and no increase in respect among scientists––the only glaring failure in the “Wedge Strategy.” u Intellectual output focused on complaints about mainstream science.

2004Intelligent Design24 ID: a scientific failure u No crisis in biology. Darwinian mechanism can produce information. “Irreducible complexity” not an issue. u Physicists also have a lot to say about producing complexity, none ID-friendly. u AI, cognitive science full of evolutionary ideas––our own “intelligent designs” are enabled by Darwinian mechanisms.

2004Intelligent Design25 More fit Less fit If you are not running this on a Macintosh, you may have to skip this slide.

2004Intelligent Design26 No preset goals! u Evolution is not a search for a preset “best solution.” u Genuine creativity can arise from rules and randomness, but again, the lack of a preset goal is crucial (Edis 1998). u Though ID raises occasional interesting questions about complexity, these are largely answered already.

2004Intelligent Design27 Where does ID go from here? u ID has made very little headway among intellectual circles. u But the same constituency for old-fashioned creationism also supports ID. u ID movement is likely to continue drawing on this constituency for support. The real battle has always been political. u Keep watching school boards.

2004Intelligent Design28 The political motivation u The motivations to push ID are the same as those which drive YEC. u ID proponents themselves argue that evolution is a social disaster.

2004Intelligent Design29 ID resources on the web  Discovery Institute:  International Society for Complexity, Information & Design:  Intelligent Design Network (grassroots): 

2004Intelligent Design30 ID critics on the web  The National Center for Science Education (your first resource for anything creationism-related):  

2004Intelligent Design31 Shameless plugs The Ghost in the Universe u Taner Edis, The Ghost in the Universe (Prometheus 2002). u Matt Young and Taner Edis, eds., Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism (Rutgers University Press 2004). This summer!

2004Intelligent Design32 My web site www2.truman.edu/~edis u Contains all sorts of articles on ID, creationism and other topics, including the slides of this talk.  My is

2004Intelligent Design33 In Short u ID is intellectually sophisticated creationism. It touches on all our sciences, not just biology. It defends grand themes. u Rejected by scientific community. u Few allies even in wider intellectual culture. u We will keep encountering the ID movement, as part of the culture wars of religious conservatism.

2004Intelligent Design34 Thanks for listening! u Any questions?