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Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement

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IT's 16 short essays by 16 scholars plus the section of Judge Jones' Kitzmiller decision dealing with ID's scientific status cover a wide range of topics and make for interesting reading. Obviously not all topics are equally interesting or equally well written, but most of them were very worthwhile.

Some of the tidbits I particularly liked were:

Jerry Coyne distinguished between a weak and a strong form of ID, showed how ID-proponents flip-flop arbitrarily between them, and explained why neither is competent science.

Leonard Susskind examined possible psychological explanations for why ID-proponents cling so tightly to what is obviously a useless scientific theory and offered a sensible approach to dealing with them. Scott Atran's essay on possible evolutionary explanations for religion and other aspects of psychology and behavior was also interesting.

Daniel Dennett proposed that "design" has two entirely different meanings, i.e., "process" and "purpose" and that it is simply an equivocation (illogically using the same word to mean two different things) for ID-proponents to draw conclusions about design-process simply because they find design-purpose in nature. I think "origin" and "function" would have been much better word-choices, respectively, but Dennett's point is well taken. It is indeed illogical to infer intelligent origin merely from finding that an object has some function in nature.

Dennett also reported an example of Dembski's flagrant dishonesty. The more I study Dembski's work, the more I think he's a sleazy con artist. For example, in one of Dembski's moderated chat rooms, "Uncommon Dissent," he or one of his colleagues made an absolutely ridiculous argument that Dover's liability for attorney fees was the fault of the new, pro-evolution board. When a participant posted a response showing that the initial argument was contrary to well established legal principles and court precedents, the moderator, perhaps Dembski himself, simply deleted the post. Like I said, sleazy, especially for people who supposedly support the idea of "teaching the controversy." Apparently, Dembski wants only his version of the controversy to be taught.

Nicholas Humphrey wrote an interesting essay on the evolution of consciousness, starting with the opening epigram "In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against my conscious self . . . "

Neil Shubin's chapter on the "great transition" from water to land animals was fascinating, and I liked the point he made at the end, that evolution's predictions can be tested. Although Shubin left it unstated, the contrast with ID in that regard is pretty obvious.

The importance of biogeography (the geographic distribution of species), a major topic about which ID, naturally, is completely silent, was a highlight of Frank Sulloway's essay.

Another fascinating essay was Stephen Pinker's argument that the actual basis for morality and ethics is completely different from what many people think. (Hint: contrary to the cutthroat implications of "survival of the fittest," evolution has no problem explaining the emergence of moral behavior.)

Lee Smolin discussed the anthropic principle and the significance of multiverse theories.

Seth Lloyd's essay on the computational power of the universe included examples of how Dembski's "No Free Lunch" arguments fail on several key points. (Dembski is so well educated, it's hard to believe that he could make so many obvious mistakes by accident. The inference to sleazy dishonesty seems a much more plausible explanation.)

Judge Jones' decision in the Kitzmiller case, excerpted in this book, is likely to be a legal landmark. While there are always nits to pick in a 139-page decision about a complex, wide-ranging controversy, Jones' decision got so many major points right that ID-proponents have no other option but to resort to blatant misrepresentations and other illogical arguments. (See my review of the Discovery Institute's critique of Jones' opinion, "Traipsing Into Evolution," co-written by spokesmen from the so-called "Discovery" Institute. As I said in that review, there is literally a major error of fact, law, or logic on virtually every single page of Traipsing.) The seriousness of the problems that ID-proponents face is demonstrated by the fact that many of Jones' most severe criticisms of ID simply echo statements that Behe himself made, a fact which the authors of "Traipsing" conveniently ignore. (See my review of "Darwin's Nemesis" for examples.)

One last point: The essays in this book covered a wide range of ideas, but all of them were written by experts in the particular fields that were the subject of their respective essays. That contrasts sharply with books published by ID-proponents, who typically have little or no educational or professional background in the relevant fields that they discuss.

In "Intelligent Thought: Science Versus The Intelligent Design Movement" editor and literary agent John Brockman has assembled sixteen insightful, quite well-written, essays from leading scientists and philosophers regarding the so-called "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design creationism" debate. While most essays offer ample refutations of Intelligent Design, others explore other, related issues, ranging from the evolution of human consciousness and whether there is indeed evidence supporting the very idea of a "designed" universe. Noted evolutionary geneticist Jerry Coyne distinguishes between "soft" scientific Intelligent Design, and its harder "religious" version, in the opening essay, "Intelligent Design: The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name". Eminent philosopher David Dennett explains why Intelligent Design is a hoax in "The Hoax of Intelligent Design and How It Was Perpetrated", discussing at length, favorite Intelligent Design rhetorical techniques like "insisting" that a scientific controversy exists when one doesn't, simply by criticizing or misinterpreting valid published scientific research (One that is clearly a favorite pastime of Discovery Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer William Dembski.). Paleontologists Tim D. White and Neil H. Shubin weigh in with succinct essays on, respectively, the hominoid fossil record ("Human Evolution: The Evidence") and the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods ("The `Great" Transition"). Historian of science Frank J. Sulloway explains "Why Darwin Rejected Intelligent Design". Distinguished physicist Lisa Randall compares and contrasts evolutionary theory with Intelligent Design ("Designing Words"), discussing both the extensive evidence for evolution and the history of evolutionary thought, while also noting why Intelligent Design fails scientifically. These sixteen essays are an excellent overview of the mendacious intellectual pornography known as Intelligent Design; for this very reason alone, they deserve to be read by as wide a readership as possible.

Over 200 years after the Enlightenment, and about 150 years after Darwin's theory revolutionized biology, most of the United States (among other countries) remains incredulous towards biology and scientifically illiterate. Coupled with a popular conservative movement, dedicated to actively fighting progress in the biological sciences, and intellectual thought in general, the capacity of future generations to advance science and technology is being threatened.

This threat is called Intelligent Design, and slowly the science community is recognizing that to combat this threat, they as scientists must reach out to the public at large to proactively explain the utility and necessity of their chosen fields, and in relation to Evolution, in particular. In that vein steps John Brockman and a list of 16 highly-respected contemporary scientists, with exceptionally well-written essays.

Intelligent Thought's greatest weakness is that it only offers 16 essays - the scope, impact, and supporting evidence of Darwin's The Origin of Species could accommodate many more discussions. As such, this book will not convert the radical devotees and preachers of Intelligent Design, but you can count on it to bring to focus at least a few concepts related to Evolutionary Theory that all but the most well-read readers will find eye-opening.

Among them:
Several of the authors in this collection of essays address ID's two-faced propaganda and intellectual dishonesty. While often-discussed in the public forum, here these problems with ID are discussed in a fresh way that reinvigorated my view of such tired discussions, and I suspect will persuasively summarize such discussions for newer readers of the Evo/ID Wars discourse.

Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey explores a topic completely novel to me: the problem of consciousness and Darwin's theory, including the modern interpretations of Wallace, Descartes, and others, and balancing the dichotomy of special creation's supposed "moral lesson" with the evolutionary benefits of human consciousness.

Elsewhere, paleontologist Tim White tells the stories of seminal discoveries along the path to reconstructing the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, as well as the anthropological importance and undeniable logic of such discoveries.

Evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin explains the discovery and study of fossils important to the fish-to-reptiles transition in Devonian times, showing that such a transition was not only possible, but nearly inevitable, given the diversity of fish fossils that have been discovered dating back some 370 million years.

Historian of science Frank Sulloway tells the story of Darwin's conversion from creationism to "descent with modification by natural selection" with fascinating details I'd not heard before. Dispelling dramaticized versions of Darwin's Galapagos trip, Sulloway adds tremendous insight into how real scientific discoveries are often stumbled upon, with even their own discoverers being highly skeptical at first.

Psychologist Scott Atran and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker together dispel the notion that morality comes from religion, instead showing the evolutionary roots of morals and other social values, and simulateously criticizes the anthropomorphization of biological change in favor of recognizing that H. sapiens is not the pinnacle of Earth's biosphere - just a haphazard byproduct of Evolution - and that these two observations are completely compatible.

Physicist Lee Smolin and quantum mechanical engineer Seth Lloyd also takes a routes that's entirely new to me - Smolin applies the notion of "Decent with modification by natural selection" to cosmology in a convincing manner; while Lloyd reduces the Universe to bits and computations to demonstrate that the Universe itself is "Intelligent" and biofriendly, adding in a free debunking of Dembski and a list of "Free Lunch Theorems."

And lastly, evolutionary psychologist Marc Hauser and chief curator of the Utah Museum of Natural History Scott Sampson make a case for restoring the integrity of science to America's educational system, and leading a campaign for science literacy directed especially towards ecology and evolution.

My only suggestion to the editor, John Brockman, is that a broader repository of essays by eminent scientists, supporting scientific integrity, science literacy, and evolution, in particular, would be a wonderful resource to have.

In the wake of the oddly and unfortunately successful creationist and Intelligent Design movement in the United States, a number of scientists have written detailed accounts of why biology matters to us and why Darwin matters so much to biology. This book is not among the more detailed or carefully persuasive accounts, it is rather a collection of brief and often passionate essays on why Darwin's argument still matters so much to us today.

"Intelligent Thought" is not a collection of careful scholarly arguments, it is mainly just an enjoyable and refreshing book for those of us who wonder quizzically at the ID movement and enjoy hearing bright people talking sense about its silliness.

A set of brief, clear essays by leading thinkers asked why Darwin matters to us today and why Intelligent Design has no traction whatsoever as a scientific explanation. Is this book a "balanced" account? No, it only expresses a variety of reasonable and informed intellectual opinions unified against the supposedly scientific theory of supernatural design.

One of the positions we have to take, depending on what influences us, is whether we believe we were created by a supernatural God or not. The reason this book is important is because it shows that such belief is fine, but we need to acknowledge that it is a 'belief' & should not start calling it science. This book is important because it shows, again, that both religion & science have important positions in our lives, & in their own context. This book is NOT anti-religious or anti-Christ; but it has strong, well-argued positions on why religion should not be confused with science & what could happen if we didn't acknowledge the demarcation.

This book has some very interesting essays. There is a good representation of ID - in its two forms; one public which is decorated with some scientific flavour to dodge the US constitution & one private which aims to establish that the earth came to be just the way it is depicted in the Bible. It is the first one that has been falsified in many essays in the book with both examples & analogy. It is interesting to note that quite a few essays note that ID is not a theory or a hypothesis because it does not have the necessary properties. Nevertheless, these scientists have still established how ID does not hold any water, even if we were to grant that it was a valid hypothesis. This, in a way, shows how strongly the scientific community feels about the issue.

There are most informative essays on evolution, & how the process of natural selection has unfolded over the millions of years. There are notes on how evolution affects & draws from not just biology but fields like geology, paleontology, physics & chemistry. There is also an essay on Darwin's 'chancing upon' the theory of evolution with a brief history of his life, time & discoveries.

Outside of this, there are two most interesting essays. One of these is on 'consciousness', its examination from an evolutionary perspective & deductive notes on how it fits in with natural selection. A second essay examines if ethics & morals are indeed as much of a religious prerogative as they are made out to be. In addition, if these too can be examined from an evolutionary perspective.

I think that either people do not care enough to understand evolution or their minds are already made up about which camp they are in. I'm not sure how much this book will 'convert' strong ID believers. Nevertheless, this book establishes again the scientific understanding of evolution, voices some very interesting/informative points of view & recommends the reinforcement of scientific approach.

S!

This book is a collection of essays by professional scientists and scholars who are intent on showing how it is possible (in fact, likely) that all life on earth is the product of millenia of evolution, and not the product of one moment of divine inspiration. It is not, however, an attempt to show that there is no God. In fact, the writers (for the most part) take some pains to show that evolution itself could be a product of divine inspiration (a surprising number of scientists are very faithfully religious).

Each essay is written by a well-established scientist (or, in the case of Dennett, philosopher), and is written to be accessible to the non-scientist. What is noteworthy of the book is that none of the authors talk down to the reader, nor do they "dumb down" the material they are writing about - they are honest, unpretentious and sincerely interested in sharing their ideas with the public at large.

This book is very readable, very interesting, and very accessible to anyone with a solid high school education, although a year or two of college (and/or a course or two in philosophy) might help. It is certainly important reading, given the efforts being made to turn "intelligent design" into a "science." I highly recommend it.

As Editor John Brockman writes in his introduction, this book, a collection of 16 essays by eminent scientists, "is a thoughtful response to the bizarre claims made by the ID movement's advocates, whose only interest in science appears to be to replace it with beliefs consistent with those of the Middle Ages." (p. x)

What the ID people are about is a power grab, an attempt to install themselves as The Authority on who we are and how we got that way. God is the puppet for whom they speak. As Brockman further notes, theirs "is a duplicitous public-relations campaign funded by Christian fundamentalist interests." (p. x)

Following the original and very interesting essays by Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Lee Smolin, Stuart Kauffman and eleven others is an incisive excerpt from the "Memorandum Opinion of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania" in the case of Kitzmiller v. the Dover Area School District, dated December 20, 2005. Judge John E. Jones III, in ruling for the Plaintiffs, makes it abundantly clear that ID is not science and has no business being taught in science classes. He chastised some members of the Dover School Board (who have since been voted out of office), noting that "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." (p. 254)

Dawkins, whose essay is entitled, "Intelligent Aliens" has warned us before about the dishonesty of creationists and ID proponents. One might ask, why are they so dishonest? Why do they bully and misrepresent? One suspects they think they have license since theirs is the work of God. At least, if you tell yourself that, as suicide bombers do, and you believe it, then whatever means you use are justified. Which is the reason that it is a waste of time to argue with ID people. They already have the truth and any argument is totally beside the point. They pretend to some spurious debate only for propaganda purposes.

Brockman knows all of this and instead of getting involved in a phony "debate" with the "intelligent design cabal" (Dawkins' designation) what he has done is persuade these sixteen distinguished scientists to explain from various disciplines (philosophy, psychology, biology, paleontology, ecology, even physics) just why, as Theodonsius Dobzhansky so succinctly put it, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." And they do a great job of that. Additionally, the essays offer insight into the evidence for evolution and further our understanding. Some excerpts:

"A denial of evolution--however motivated--is a denial of evidence, a retreat from reason to ignorance." (p. 80) --paleontologist Tim D. White

"An understanding of morality is to be found through secular moral reasoning and lies in fundamental facts about the human condition, not in the dictates of a supernatural deity." (p. 143) --cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker

This is the point of Pinker's essay, a refutation of the religious idea that human beings cannot be moral without the fear of retribution from God, or that religion is what teaches morality. His striking and very persuasive argument includes the idea that, "an evolutionary understanding of the human condition, far from being incompatible with a moral sense, can explain why we have one." (p. 152)

One of the delusive ideas of the ID people is the notion of "irreducible complexity." The problem with that, as Dawkins has observed, is, how can we be sure that something is irreducibly complex? Physicist Seth Lloyd's essay "How Smart Is the Universe?" demonstrates that the universe is plenty smart enough to handle any sort of "irreducible complexity" on its own without any help from supernatural beings. He notes, "Because of the universe's information-processing power and diversity, it was virtually certain to hit upon life sooner or later." (p. 187)

If you haven't encountered this line of reasoning before--the universe as an information processing computer--(and I hadn't) reading this essay should be most interesting. Lloyd estimates that the universe has performed around 10 to the 122th operations in its 13.8 billion years of existence. (p. 180) Add this computing power (call it the ability to perform trial and error experiments at random) to the self-organizing aspects of matter and energy (as presented in Stuart A. Kauffman's essay, "Intelligent Design, Science or Not?") and the appearance of life in the universe seems well nigh inevitable--which I believe is the majority opinion of scientists today. Kauffman believes it would contribute to a better understanding if evolution were "recast as a marriage of self-organization and selection." (p. 177) I think this is already being done.

By the way, Kauffman shows how the ID people could make a testable prediction (although, of course, they dare not). He writes, "The intelligent-design advocate must predict that in NO CASE will...intermediate forms [of life] with diverse functionalities be found." His point is that intermediate forms are "evidence against irreducible complexity demanding a Designer." (p. 173) His conclusion is that such forms exist and "count as disconfirming evidence" not pleasing to ID "scientists."

It is interesting to note how the essays and their arguments from diverse fields support one another and amount to unified support for the fact of evolution. This is the strength of the book, brilliantly conceived and nicely put together by John Brockman who is a science editor par excellence.

I wish I could review each essay individually as it bears on the sub-title. If it was not for the importance of getting works like this out, I might have been tempted to only give three.

The book is a collection of 16 essays, some of which deal directly with the "Intelligent Design" (ID) movement, some of which discuss the ramifications of neo-Darwinism. And some that go quite far afield.

The first essay, by Coyne, is about the fallicy of calling ID a science. He does a great job of describing what science is, why evolution meets that definition, and why ID does not. Basic and easy to follow, this was one of my favorite in the book because it goes straight to the heart of the "controversy".

Susskind writes well, but the main thrust of his essay is about the science-religion conflict and the politics that exist to prolong it, not about the crisis of trying to teach religion in science class.

The third review, by Dennett, covers why people are turned off by evolutionary theory's complexities and become convinced by ID'd PR that it has a valid point to make. It's a good overview of how a nonexistant "scientific debate" has been misrepresented to the public.

In the fourth essay, Humphrey discusses the evolution of human consciousness. This piece was confusing and a bit too philosophical for my liking. I know it was a reply to the ID idea that consciousness must have been designed in, but when he starts showing that consciousness is an illousion of mental activity, he lost me.

Paleotologist White rambles about various digs in Africa to show humans have changed over time.

Shubin does a great job of showing that the great transition at the start of the Cambrian wasn't so great, it was just successful. He covers the fish to tetrapod shift very well, showing that evolution is testable, but that's as close as he gets to dealing with ID.

In his essay, Dawkins starts off by showing that ID's claim that maybe aliens designed us begs the question of where did they come from. He writes mostly about the difficulty of finding alien life, but returns to ID at the very end, albeit briefly.

Next, Sulloway reviews Darwin's thought process from the creation idea that was the prime paradigm of his time to natural selection. More of a history of Darwin's change of mind and methods, it doesn't really address the ID topic.

Atran starts off well, showing that if there was a designer, he sure did a crappy job in some places. He provides several examples of anatomy that could have been designed much better, but make sense with evolution using what's available. Alas, he then turns off into a discussion of the role of religion that rambles off the stating point.

Pinker shows that morality can "evolve" in a society without the interferance of a mandate from a creator. I thought this whole thing was off the topic of the book.

Physicist Smolin discusses the possible origin of our universe and ways it might happen absent the creator's hand. It was a bit hard to follow, and, again, I'm not sure this essay belonged in this collection.

The next piece, by Kauffman, was about self-organization and assembly being possible without outside help. It was confusing.

According to Lloyd in the next essay, the universe is so big and so many chemical reactions, or information processing, happen that it was inevitable that life would arise, no help needed. Some good ideas, but boring.

Randall wrote a rambling piece about part of the history of the evolutionary debate, finishing with some comments about how science is almost never 100% sure, but it's still science.

Hauser chimes in with a piece about how the government shouldn't force subjects outside of a diciplin to be taught within the subject's curriculum. While a course on scientific controversies would be interesting, it shouldn't be part of an actual high-school science course for fear it would confuse the students as to what was accepted science and what is not. This was a good piece about education and the importance of keeping to the curriculum needed at that level.

And last, Sampson describes why it's important for evolution not only to be understood itself, but also in tandem with ecology.

Overall, the book was a good read, but some of the essays seemed out of place in this work. Still, I liked it. The addition of excerpts from the anti-ID decision in Kitzmiller vs Dover School District at the end was a nice touch.

This collection of essays is all over the place. The first essay by Jerry Coyne is a gem. It is the most thorough and concise explanation I have seen of the evidence for evolution and of why Intelligent Design is not science. A similar essay by Coyne is available online if you know where to look.

After that, mileage varies considerably. Daniel Dennett does a presentable job of explaining some of the rhetorical hijinx engaged in by ID advocates. Steven Pinker does a nice job presenting evolutionary models for morality. Some of the others seem off-target or even weak. I would like to know where Lisa Randall gets her numbers, and how deep her knowledge of biology is. I didn't get much out of Nicholas Humphrey's essay on consciousness. It is devoid of any sense of the fascinating findings of cognitive science of the last several decades. Seth Llloyd's essay on the computing power of hte universe was so far out there that I have no idea how sound it might be.

The appendix, with an excerpt from Judge Jones' decision in the Kitsmiller v. Dover case, is another gem, and one that is also available elsewhere.

If certain "terrorist" groups hold the USA to be "The Great Satan", then people in that country have a "Great Satan" of their own - Charles Robert Darwin. David Quammen declares that "81 per cent to 87 per cent of Americans reject Darwin's view" of the evolution of life. So what do all those millions of people accept as the basis for life and its changing aspects? Apparently, some kind of divine intervention. A generation ago, it was one of the versions of the Book of Genesis. Somewhat later, that view was "supported" by a movement known as "creation science". Thrown out of US schools as unconstitutional, "creation science" itself evolved [irony of ironies] into something called "Intelligent Design". This collection of essays examines ID from various perspectives. All find "eye dee" wanting.

Jerry Coyne opens the series by exposing the basic fallacy of ID - it's a religious movement that denies its own roots. In the United States, public schools are supposed to keep religion out on the street. While "official" ID documents are careful to keep their "designer" unnamed, their spokesmen are less cautious. Their ambition to modify US education along lines they define as "Christian" has been manifested without hesitation. Even with this exposure, which counters US law, ID has continued to seek popular acceptance.

More to the point of Brockman's subtitle, however, is the theme of the remaining essays. ID declares itself to be "scientific" and has co-opted some trained scholars into the movement. With degrees trailing behind their names, they seem to have credibility in their claims of certitude. Several of the essayists examine the claims of ID and how those were derived. Neither research nor logic support the thesis that an "intelligent agent" either caused life to originate nor "tweaked" it with various "upgrades" over the passage of time. The evidence from fossils and genomes, as several of these writers point out, precludes any modifications not attributable to natural forces. Scott Atran explains how natural selection has built on each organism's antecedents in dealing with change in conditions. The lineage of life, these authors demonstrate effectively, is long. Yet, given that duration, life conserves what's useful over many millennia. There's no place here for a "designer". Even the conditions in deep space and time show no need for a divinity to have been involved.

Advocates of ID claim their efforts are not to establish religious ideologies in classrooms, but the works of their writers, however, belie their true foundation. Daniel Dennett shows the propaganda methods ID uses to appear "disinterested". Nicholas Humphrey demonstrates how the "argument from design" has a long lineage, and how Darwin's concept demolished it. Raising the concept anew doesn't give it validity. Worse, the "Intelligent Design" proponents can't even validate their own proposals. No research, not even a theoretical statement, has ever been produced by any of ID's adherents. Merely declarations that "such things can't be" without an outside agency are forthcoming. One needn't be a scientist to understand that "Intelligent Design" isn't. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]