Why Darwin Matters

by Michael Shermer

  Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

  Demonstrating his understanding of the provisional nature of science, Judge Jones added that uncertainties in science do not translate into evidence for a nonscientific belief:

  To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

  The judge pulled no punches in his opinion about the board’s actions and especially their motives, going so far as to call them liars:

  The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

  Finally, knowing how his decision would be received by the press, Judge Jones forestalled any accusations of him being an activist judge, and in the process took one more shot at the “breathtaking inanity” of the Dover school board:

  Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

  Q.E.D.

  THE REAL AGENDA

  Johnson calls his movement “The Wedge.” The objective, he said, is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to “the truth” of the Bible and then “the question of sin” and finally “introduced to Jesus.”

  —Rob Johnson, on ID proponent Phillip Johnson, Church & State magazine, 1999

  One evening several years ago, while on a book tour for How We Believe, I gave a lecture at MIT on why people believe in God. Coincidentally, at the same time, down the hall, the mathematician William Dembski was lecturing on Intelligent Design theory. After our respective talks we did what any two people of opposing camps in a controversy should do—we went out for a beer. Accompanied by Bill’s colleague Paul Nelson, we sat around a sports bar and reflected on science and religion, evolution and creationism, and—this being Boston—the Red Sox and the Yankees. Since that evening, I have debated Bill, Paul, and the Intelligent Design philosopher Stephen Meyer, on several occasions, and have shared car rides and meals in the process. Paul Nelson visited the Skeptics Society office and library, after which we dined with God and mammon. Having gotten to know these gentlemen over the years, I must aver that a more gracious, considerate, and thoughtful group you will not find.

  Because of our friendship, these guys have been forthright with me about their religious beliefs, which, of course, I could not help but inquire about. Although to a man they remain steadfast in their claim that they are pursuing a scientific agenda and not a religious one, they privately acknowledge their belief that the Intelligent Designer is the God of Abraham. To my knowledge, in fact, all but one of the leading Intelligent Design proponents is an evangelical Christian.

  On the one hand, this should not matter in the assessment of someone’s claim, and I have devoted the longest chapter of this book to their arguments. On the other hand, when nearly every single member of a scientific community belongs to one particular religious faith, your baloney detection alarms should signal you that there is something else afoot here, as indeed there is.

  As a scientist, I look to the data. And although I disdain to accuse friends of being insincere about their motives, the extant evidence—in their own published words—leads me to conclude that there is a distinct and definite religious and political agenda behind and above whatever science they think they are pursuing. Human behavior is complex and multivariate in its causes—motives are not so easily pigeonholed into black-and-white categories. In my opinion, the Intelligent Design creationists I have met believe their own rhetoric about only doing science and having no religious or political agendas, and they also believe in the religious and political tenets to which they adhere.

  God and the Wedge

  In an attempt to distance themselves from “scientific creationists,” who were handily defeated in the 1987 Supreme Court case, Intelligent Design creationists emphasize that they are interested only in doing science. According to Dembski, for example, “scientific creationism has prior religious commitments whereas intelligent design does not.”1

  Baloney. On February 6, 2000, Dembski told the National Religious Broadcasters at their annual conference in Anaheim, California, that “intelligent design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God. . . . The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ. . . . And if there’s anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ as the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view.”2 In a feature article in the Christian magazine Touchstone, Dembski was even more direct: “Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.”3

  Make no mistake about it. Creationists and their Intelligent Design brethren do not just want equal time, they want all the time they can get. Listen to the words of Phillip Johnson, the University of California, Berkeley, law professor who is the fountainhead of the modern Intelligent Design movement, at the same National Religious Broadcasters meeting at which Dembski spoke: “Christians in the twentieth century have been playing defense. They’ve been fighting a defensive war to defend what they have, to defend as much of it as they can. It never turns the tide. What we’re trying to do is something entirely different. We’re trying to go into enemy territory, their very center, and blow up the ammunition dump. What is their ammunition dump in this metaphor? It is their version of creation.”4 In 1996, Johnson did not pull his punches: “This isn’t really, and never has been, a debate about science. . . . It’s about religion and philosophy.”5

  Enter the Wedge. It was Johnson who introduced the metaphor in his book The Wedge of Truth. “The Wedge of my title is an informal movement of like-minded thinkers in which I have taken a leading role,” he writes. “Our strategy is to drive the thin end of our Wedge into the cracks in the log of naturalism by bringing long-neglected questions to the surface and introducing them to public debate.” After naturalism falls, materialism is the next target in their gun sights. “Once our research and writing have had time to mature, and the public prepared for the reception of design theory, we will move toward direct confrontation with the advocates of materialist science through challenge conferences in significant academic settings. . . . The attention, publicity, and influence of design theory should draw scientific materialists into open debate with design theorists, and we will be ready
.”6 This is not just an attack on naturalism, it is a religious war against all of science. “It is time to set out more fully how the Wedge program fits into the specific Christian gospel (as distinguished from generic theism), and how and where questions of biblical authority enter the picture. As Christians develop a more thorough understanding of these questions, they will begin to see more clearly how ordinary people—specifically people who are not scientists or professional scholars—can more effectively engage the secular world on behalf of the gospel.”7

  The principal exception to my earlier generalization that Intelligent Design creationists are Christians is the author of the Top Ten list of evolutionary “icons,” Jonathan Wells. Wells is a Moonie—a member of the Unification Church and a follower of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who assigned Wells the task of destroying evolution. “Father’s [the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s] words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism,” Wells confesses. “When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.” Wells went out and earned his doctorate and penned The Icons of Evolution.

  Beyond the legal and religious angling, a motivation for Intelligent Design theorists to distance themselves from the creationists of old is that no one took the creationists seriously. Dembski, who has no qualms about contesting creationist beliefs of other stripes to further his cause, explained the problem in a 2005 debate with the Young Earth creationist Henry Morris. The first step, he says, involves “dismantling materialism. . . . Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology, which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I’ve found that it opens the path for people to come to Christ. Indeed, once materialism is no longer an option, Christianity again becomes an option.” The objective then is to find a foothold for ridding the world of materialism. In Dembski’s view, “intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious consideration.”8

  The new creationism may differ in the details from the old creationism, but their ultimate goals run parallel. The veneer of science in Intelligent Design theory is there purposely to cover up the religious agenda. Indeed, when you press Intelligent Design creationists on what science, precisely, they are practicing, they admit in person that they have not yet developed “that part” of their program. For a similarly honest self-appraisal of the Intelligent Design movement recorded in print, Dembski’s 2004 book, The Design Revolution, provides the money quote (or the confession): “Because of intelligent design’s outstanding success at gaining a cultural hearing, the cultural and political component of intelligent design is now running ahead of the scientific and intellectual component.”9 At a 2004 meeting of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Paul Nelson confirmed Dembski’s assessment. “Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design,” Nelson said. “We don’t have such a theory right now, and that’s a problem. . . . Right now, we’ve got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as ‘irreducible complexity’ and ‘specified complexity’—but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.”10

  The true measure of a scientific theory is whether any scientists use it or not, and no scientists are using Intelligent Design theory. Even vocally Christian scientists do not use the intuitions of Intelligent Design in place of the scientific method. Lee Anne Chaney, a professor of biology at the Christian-based Whitworth College, sums it up:

  As a Christian, part of my belief system is that God is ultimately responsible. But as a biologist, I need to look at the evidence. Scientifically speaking, I don’t think intelligent design is very helpful because it does not provide things that are refutable—there is no way in the world you can show it’s not true. Drawing inferences about the deity does not seem to me to be the function of science because it’s very subjective.11

  The Intelligent Design movement “does not provide things that are refutable” because its real objective is not to prove a scientific theory but to gain ground for religious ideology.

  Follow the Money

  Science or no science, to illuminate the agenda behind Intelligent Design we can employ the tried-and-true method of political analysis: Follow the money. According to an extensive investigation by The New York Times, the Seattle-based Discovery Institute—the nonprofit organization that has been the hammer of the Wedge movement—has been funded primarily by right-wing religious groups. The Ahmanson Foundation, for example, donated $750,000 through its executor, Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who once said his goal is “the total integration of biblical law into our lives.” The MacLellan Foundation, a group that commits itself to “the infallibility of the Scripture” and gives grants to organizations “committed to furthering the Kingdom of Christ,” donated $450,000 to the Discovery Institute. In 1998, Howard F. Ahmanson’s conservative philanthropy, Fieldstead & Company, granted the Discovery Institute $300,000 per year for five years, and in 1999 the Stewardship Foundation increased its grant to $200,000 per year for five years. According to its Web site, the Stewardship Foundation was established “to contribute to the propagation of the Christian Gospel by evangelical and missionary work.” Most of the other twenty-two foundations supporting the Discovery Institute with financial contributions were identified by the Times as politically conservative, including the Henry P. and Susan C. Crowell Trust of Colorado Springs, whose Web site describes its mission as “the teaching and active extension of the doctrines of evangelical Christianity,” and the AMDG Foundation in Virginia, whose initials stand for Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, Latin for “To the greater glory of God.”

  The Times also investigated the tax documents for the Discovery Institute and found that annual giving from conservative groups had increased from $1.4 million in 1997 to $4.1 million in 2003. With an annual budget of $3.6 million a year since 1996, the Discovery Institute has been sponsoring fellowships of $5,000 to $60,000 per year to fifty researchers. According to Stephen Meyer, a recipient of Discovery largess, 39 percent of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture budget of $9.3 million since 1996 has gone to underwrite various publishing projects.12

  Money talks. At the time of this writing there are no fewer than seventy-eight pending legal clashes between Intelligent Design and evolution in thirty-one different states. Most of these have been fueled by the Discovery Institute’s funding program. Fifty books, countless opinion editorials, essays, reviews, and commentaries, even slick documentaries—two broadcast on public television and one shown at the Smithsonian Institution—have also come down the pipeline.13 As a poignant example of what money can buy, at the urging of the Discovery Institute’s public relations firm—the same firm that promoted conservative congressman Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America—in July 2005, Catholic cardinal Christof Schönborn wrote an opinion editorial in The New York Times in which he contradicted Pope John Paul II’s 1996 statement that the theory of evolution is no threat to religion. Schönborn told Catholics that the Church does not accept evolution, a stunning reversal countered by the Vatican itself when Cardinal Paul Poupard held a press conference to declare that Genesis and evolution are “perfectly compatible.”14

  The Discovery Institute is about politics, not science. According to its president, Bruce Chapman, described by the Times as “a Rockefeller Republican turned Reagan conservative” who draws a hefty salary of $141,000 a year, “we are not going through this exercise just for the fun of it. We think some of these ideas are destined to change the intellectual—and in time the political—world.” He is careful to add that “Fieldstead & Company and the Stewardship Foundation agree, or they would not have given us such substantial funding.”15 The Discovery Institute has beco
me so political, in fact, that the Templeton Foundation—the provider of the largest cash prize available (over $1 million) for “progress in religion”—has withdrawn its support. After giving the Discovery Institute $75,000 for a 1999 conference on Intelligent Design, they have since rejected the institute’s grant proposals. Why? “They’re political—that for us is problematic,” explained the senior vice president of the Templeton Foundation, Charles L. Harper, Jr., who added that although Discovery has “always claimed to be focused on the science, what I see is much more focused on public policy, on public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth.”16

  The Greater Glory

  Although the motives of the proponents of Intelligent Design are secondary to their arguments, these motives are misplaced.

  Let us reconsider the motto of the Christian AMDG Foundation—Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam—“To the greater glory of God.” These are stirring words, even emblazoned on the stationery of Pope John Paul II, the same Pope who granted one billion Catholics permission to accept evolution as a reality of nature that poses no threat to religion.

  If you are a theist, what could possibly proclaim the greater glory of God’s creation more than science, the instrument that has illuminated more than any other tool of human knowledge the grandeur in this evolutionary view of life? There are questions that remain to be answered, to be sure, and controversies still to be resolved, but they are questions and controversies open to all of us—theists and atheists, conservatives and liberals—because science knows no religious or political boundaries. Science, more than any other tradition, follows the motto erected at the Panama Canal: Aperire Terram Gentibus, “To Open the World to All People.”