Article 25227 of talk.origins:
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Scott on Dean Kenyon
Date: 18 Mar 1994 16:15 MST
Organization: University of Arizona
Lines: 277

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 20:19:30 -0500 (EST) From: Erik Wheaton 
<72073.3411@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Round 2 INSIGHT article

Sorry folks I ommitted the pertinent data on Insight. The 
article by Eugenie C. Scott, Ph.D. was published in Volume 10 
Number 8 of Insight On The News, dated 2/21/1994 and has been 
copied with their permission. Erik

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 20:05:34 -0500 (EST) From: Erik Wheaton 
<72073.3411@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Insight Article

This is a copy of the article Eugenie C. Scott wrote for 
Insight magazine. We have permission to copy and distribute it 
from the publisher.

Who is Dean Kenyon and why are we mindful of him? Twenty-five 
years ago he co-authored a pretty good book on the biochemistry 
of the origin of life. He started publishing creationist 
articles a few years later, and hasn't published much in 
mainline science journals, since. He teaches at a good state 
university with a graduate program, but has no graduate 
students of his own, and hasn't had a research grant since the 
mid 1970's. He recently co-authored a high school biology 
supplemental text (Of Pandas and People) that was criticized by 
scientists for inaccuracy and by teachers for bad pedagogy.

Such is the resume of the man whom Stephen Meyer, co-author of 
a section of that text, calls "a world-class scientist." This 
may be a bit hyperbolic. More accurately, Kenyon is a scientist 
of modest accomplishments who apparently has let his religious 
views cloud his scientific judgement.

Kenyon is embroiled in a debate at his university, which, 
depending on your view, either centers on the right to advocate 
scientifically defendable if unorthodox views, or the right of 
a department to protect less-knowledgeable students from faulty 
scholarship. Kenyon was not fired, nor given a pay cut, nor 
forbidden to teach his ideas to advanced students. He was 
removed from teaching as science ideas outside of science in a 
freshman non-majors introductory biology class.

Can a college professor teach anything he wants? Obviously, if 
I offer a class in physics, I should not teach students French 
literature; no one argues whether class content should match 
the course description. Now, suppose the physics course 
description directs me to teach mechanics. I might want for 
historical purposes to discuss both Aristotelian and Newtonian 
mechanics, and that would be appropriate. But what if I taught 
that the two views are equally viable explanations? Or asserted 
that even though most physicists support Newtonian mechanics, 
they do so out of religious bias and that Aristotelian 
mechanics is scientifically more valid? Do I have the academic 
freedom to teach students erroneous science? Maybe, but my 
colleagues would certainly not want me indoctrinating freshman 
non-majors in such irregular physics.

This directly parallels Dean Kenyon's situation. Kenyon is 
teaching (to inexperienced students) that evolution did not 
occur. And while the general public understands that advocating 
Aristotelian mechanics is "wrong" physics, it doesn't realize 
teaching that evolution didn't occur is equally "wrong" 
biology. Kenyon is teaching that the organizing principle of 
biology, evolution, just did not occur. This is like a chemist 
claiming academic freedom to teach students that the periodic 
table of elements is irrelevant to chemistry.

Through out-of-context quotes, creationists claim there is a 
dispute over whether evolution occurred, when the real dispute 
is over how evolution occurred. Quotations aside, what is 
really happening in science? Well, every year there are scores 
of conferences where scientists present and debate their 
research, all of which assumes evolution occurred. New 
scholarly journals are joining scores of extant ones, all 
devoted to evolution and its ramifications for not just 
biology, but geology, physics, astronomy, chemistry -- all 
scientific fields. Evolution is taught as accepted science in 
every major university in the country, including Brigham Young, 
Baylor, Southern Methodist, and Notre Dame. Tens of thousands 
of scholars in both religious and secular institutions can't 
all be deluded.

Let's define some terms. The creation/evolution conflict 
reflects two views of the history of the universe. Creationists 
claim that the galaxies, the solar system, the planet Earth, 
and the plants and animals on it were produced all at once, in 
their present form. Evolutionists say that the universe did not 
appear all at one time, but gradually over billions of years. 
Elements were formed in suns, space dust coalesced into 
planets, and the earth gradually took form. Simple life 
appeared, and later gave rise to a great diversity of living 
things. Rather than being created separately as "kinds", living 
forms are descended, with modification, from common ancestors.

"Simple life appeared" is a major issue for creationists. Was 
it through natural or supernatural causation? The study of how 
life originated is an active area in science today. The "primal 
soup" theory, the formation of replicating molecules on 
crystalline clay substrates, and the seeding of amino acids and 
other components of life from comets and meteors (in which 
these molecules form spontaneously in space), and other ideas 
are under consideration.

Meyer's contention that life is too complex to form naturally 
ignores research exploring the possibility that life is 
actually self-organizing. Combining the tools of mathematics, 
physical properties of matter, and information theory, this 
field has its roots in the work of Nobel Laureate Manfred 
Eigen, and has been expanded by Peter Schuster, Bernd-Olaf 
Kuppers, and in the US by several investigators including 
Stuart A. Kauffman, whose newest book, The Origins of Order; 
Self-organization and Selection in Evolution was just published 
in 1993.

These investigators observe that the building blocks of life 
(amino acids and other compounds known to form spontaneously) 
can link together, and some of the compounds formed are 
"autocatalytic": they cause other amino acids to link up. 
Something like a primitive metabolism emerges in these models 
-- and scientists are testing these models in laboratories. 
Exciting developments in the production of something very close 
to RNA, a major chemical of life, have recently been announced. 
If life is capable of self-organization, the criticisms raised 
by Meyer against "primal soup" biochemistry are irrelevant.

Scientists do not agree on how life began. Yet. And "yet" is a 
very important word in science. One should not assume that just 
because something is not currently understood that it never 
will be understood. Meyer suggests that because some models of 
the natural origin of life have been disproved, we must give up 
our search and seek a supernatural explanation.

Resorting to the supernatural violates a major canon of modern 
science: explain only through natural causes. The reason is not 
antireligious, but purely practical: better answers are found 
when only natural causes are specified.

Consider: if I grow two plots of corn, fertilize only one, and 
find that both yield the same number of ears, how do I explain 
my results? I can examine the chemical content of the 
fertilizer, and find that it contained no nitrogen, or I can 
say, "God wanted both plots to produce the same number of 
ears." Well, maybe so.

So I plant two more plots, fertilize only one, and this time 
the fertilized plot produces more ears. How do I explain this? 
Looking for natural causes, I might find that this batch of 
fertilizer has nitrogen, and maybe I can make a generalization 
to test further. But if I allow supernatural explanation, I 
have to consider that maybe God did it. Where would this get 
me? How can I establish general explanatory principles, like 
corn needs nitrogen to grow well, if I can explain away my 
results by invoking a capricious Creator? If I am to understand 
the natural world, I have to conduct my science as if only 
natural forces affected my subject.

And indeed, the world appears to operate according to 
regularities -- it looks like God doesn't reach down and 
arbitrarily mess up experiments. So we don't need to look for 
miracles: just keep trying to find the natural explanation. In 
Pandas, Meyer claims that scientists don't allow supernatural 
explanation because the supernatural is not observable. 
Nonsense. Particle physicists study phenomena they can't 
directly observe, and so do many other scientists. But you 
can't (scientifically) study variables you can't test, directly 
or indirectly. You can't use supernatural explanation because 
you can't put an omnipotent deity in a test tube (or keep it 
out of one.) As soon as creationists invent a theometer, maybe 
then we can test for miraculous intervention.

Now, Kenyon and Meyer know that science has to work without 
supernatural intervention, but for theological reasons they 
make an exception for evolutionary sciences. In Pandas, they 
redefine science into two kinds: "inductive sciences" and 
"historical sciences." My corn plot example falls into 
"inductive science": explanations do not invoke supernatural 
intervention, but only refer to natural law. The goal of 
inductive science, they say, is to discover how the "natural 
world would normally operate on it's (sic) own." (We assume 
that "normally operate" allows even here for a miracle or two 
when needed.) The supposed goal of "historical science" is "to 
reconstruct past events and conditions." We're supposed to 
believe that geology does not refer to natural laws and 
regularities.

In reality, "historical sciences" boils down to those 
disciplines that have theological implications, whereas 
"inductive sciences" are those that don't. Similarly, 
creationists accept "microevolution", genetically-based change 
within a species, but deny "macroevolution", the evolution of 
new species. The mechanisms of microevolution can produce 
speciation, which is the first step in macroevolution.

What makes the authors nervous is the possibility of descent 
with modification. Stars and galaxies may be evolving, but not 
starfish and galagos. The nervousness is theological: if 
descent with modification occurred, humankind becomes part of 
nature, less special, and to some, less likely to have been 
created with a purpose in mind. But purpose or meaning of life 
is a philosophical matter, not a scientific one. Many accept 
evolution as the history of life and still believe that life 
has a purpose. But purpose must be found in metaphysics, not in 
physics.

Within "historical science," Kenyon and Meyer are especially 
wary of Darwinism, evolution by natural selection. In modified 
form it provides the basis of our understanding of how descent 
with modification has taken place. Darwinism causes them 
difficulty because it provides a natural mechanism to explain 
both the variety and similarity of living things. They seem to 
feel that if life could have come about naturally, and if the 
variety of life can be explained by Darwinism, then God is 
diminished: a less active Creator not personally involved in 
his Creation. Their solution is to reject Darwinism, origin of 
life research, and the methodology of modern science. Theology 
overshadows science.

Kenyon and Meyer are now reviving special design and 
creationism under the title "intelligent design theory." They 
hearken back to William Paley, who in 1802 proposed the 
existence of complex structures in living organisms proved the 
existence of God. Just as a complex artifact like a watch had 
to have a watchmaker, he reasoned, so a complex structure like 
the vertebrate eye has to have had a designer. The modern 
incarnation, "intelligent design theory," claims that 
complexity is the result of a "plan" or blueprint. Blueprints 
are too complex to spontaneously occur, thus they must have 
creators.

Both Paley and "intelligent design" are refuted by the same 
arguments.

First, people seem to find "design" even when it is not there. 
An entomologist, after searching through hundreds of thousands 
of butterflies, has discovered the "butterfly alphabet": 
naturally-occurring patterns that look like English letters. 
Does this mean that butterflies read English? Would a Russian 
entomologist find a different set of letters? It is more 
sensible to explain the butterfly alphabet as random markings 
that the human mind has organized into a pattern.

But even if we tend to see design more often than it actually 
occurs, there are organisms that work well and structures that 
are quite ingenious. Can "perfection" be explained by natural 
rather than supernatural causes? Yes. A complex structure like 
the vertebrate eye is produced by a "plan" held in the DNA of 
the cell. This plan can evolve through natural selection. 
Complex, well-working structures could have been produced by 
supernatural intervention, or they could have evolved by 
natural selection. Observing "perfection" in nature doesn't 
allow us to choose.

One has to look at the clunkers, the Rube Goldberg structures, 
the bricolage of life and ask if these are more likely the 
result of omniscient design or of evolution. And there are 
plenty of examples of questionable "design."

How about human bipedalism? If an engineer were to design a 
biped from scratch, he or she would not take the body plan of 
an arboreal quadruped and tip it on its back legs. Would an 
omnipotent designer deliberately create our injury-prone lumbar 
vertebral region, our hernia-prone abdominal region, our 
fracture-prone kneejoint? Why don't birds get hernias and 
slipped disks? Did God design better bipedalism for birds than 
for humans?

If a panda needed a grasping hand, why make a thumb out of a 
wrist bone, instead of using the extant thumb? Natural 
selection operating on available genetic variation could 
explain such a Rube Goldberg structure. Would an omniscient 
creator produce a waterbird like the anhinga of Florida that 
lacked waterproof feathers?

Natural selection does not have to produce perfectly adapted 
forms; all that's needed is "survival of the fit enough." But 
the presence of so many structures that barely work, or which 
are obviously cobbled together from earlier stages of 
evolution, is more than enough reason to doubt that creatures 
were separately, specially designed.

Such disproofs of intelligent design do not mean that evolution 
is incompatible with the idea of a creator. Recently I went on 
a retreat with a group of ministers all of whom were 
creationists, believing God created, and all of whom were 
evolutionists, believing that evolution was God's mode of 
creation. But we should not be teaching their theistic 
evolution in science class any more than we should be teaching 
Kenyon's "intelligent design." The evolutionary sciences have 
given us a very good picture of the history of life, and have 
earned their place in science. The ultimate cause is a matter 
of theology, which should be kept out of science classes.

I have stressed that all science, not just some contrived 
"inductive science," has to operate without reference to the 
supernatural. To study the history of life without reference to 
the supernatural is no more atheistic than taking a square root 
without reference to the supernatural. But Meyer and Kenyon 
accuse scientists who disallow supernatural explanations for 
natural phenomena of being philosophical naturalists who deny 
the existence of god. They are confusing a necessary 
methodological naturalism with a philosophical naturalism that 
indeed, some scientists (and some bookkeepers and some ballet 
dancers) hold. But like bookkeeping and ballet dancing, there 
is nothing inherent in science that forces someone to accept 
naturalism as a philosophy.

There is no "new science" of intelligent design. In Meyer's 
position there is a revival of some 19th century ideas, and on 
analysis, the subordination of science to theology. Meyer's 
arguments are ignored in universities today not because they 
are too new, but because they have been tried and found 
wanting, some of them decades ago. The scientific community 
looks at these criticisms as an elephant does a fly: if noticed 
at all, they are viewed as minor annoyances that take time from 
more important work. As Huxley said, "life is too short to 
occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once."

And that is why Dean Kenyon should not be teaching creationism 
as science to freshmen.


Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona  Preparing to punt academia for a return to the
Tucson, AZ 85721       computer world. (Got a job to offer in the SF area?)



(End of text)