Is It Science?

“Intelligent design is not science,” many people within the science community regularly repeat. This claim has acquired considerable traction in our culture. From the science classroom to the courtroom, the intelligent design concept has been consigned instead to the realms of religion and theology. William A. Dembski, prominent proponent of intelligent design, writes in The Design Revolution (2004) that ID critics, “Rather than help assess the merit of intelligent design as a scientific project…relegate it to the ‘safe’ realms of religion and theology, where it can’t cause any trouble (which in itself is an indictment of how far theology has been downgraded in Western culture).”

The scientific community, wholly committed to methodological naturalism as an operating principle, and largely committed to philosophical naturalism as a guiding principle, is not about to honestly assess and judge the scientific merits of the case for intelligent design. Such actions would amount to a paradigm shift for that community: Scientists do not pretend to speculate on the meaning of evidence which may signal supernatural cause and effect. They fear acknowledging intelligent design may be tantamount to acknowledging an intelligent deity. When the evidence uncovered indicates the intelligent cause may be a supernatural being, the scientists demur. However, intelligent causes are frequently the subject of scientific investigations.

Let us move this discussion to the realm of the practical and experiential. My wife and I just returned from a 21-day journey to Europe. We devoted several days to each of seven major countries, visiting primarily historical sites. Detailed records exist to account for the origins of many historic structures of recent centuries. Clearly, the structures were intelligently designed. But further back in time less recorded information is available. In some instances, such as the Roman city of Pompeii, all structures were completely buried under cinders and ash by a violent volcanic eruption in 79 AD, and the thriving city was basically forgotten until the 18^th century. Archaeology uses systematic empirical, scientific methods of investigation and analysis to establish intelligent origin.

No one doubts that the methods of archaeologists are those of traditional science. The same may be said for methods of modern investigators such as forensic experts. Dembski and other intelligent design proponents such as Stephen C. Meyer make the case that the science community accepts many instances of intelligent causation in the systems they investigate. They consider their conclusions of intelligent causation to be supported by good science. In the case of natural systems displaying evidence of a supernatural intelligent designer, however, they claim the same rules do not apply.

Dembski states “The fundamental claim of intelligent design is straightforward and easily intelligible: namely, there exist natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural causes and that exhibit features that in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence.” It is unfortunate that the rules for determining a causally adequate explanation differ according to the subject under investigation.

Past Postings

During your science blogger’s brief hiatus from regular posting on the Ankerberg website, readers are invited to review several series I have posted in the past. Clicking on each link below takes you to the first commentary in each series. Clicking on Newer Post at the bottom of each article progressively takes you through the series. I offer five suggestions:

THEISTIC EVOLUTION – Over thirty posts examined the foundations and implications of the belief in theistic evolution. TE has become a significant discussion issue and a source of disagreement among Christians:

http://jasscience.blogspot.com/2011/02/concordisms-counterbalance.html

INVISIBLE ENERGY – This more light-hearted series of ten posts studied the wonders of invisible electromagnetic (radiant) energy, and how knowledge of it and its application have revolutionized human experience within the past 1½ centuries. When I taught physical science, this topic was one of my personal favorites:

http://jasscience.blogspot.com/2009/10/ubiquitous-radiant-energy.html

CREATIONISM VIEWS – Over twenty-five posts examined the differences in Christian creationist beliefs. There is substantial divergence of positions concerning the antiquity of the universe and geologic events and time scales. This series does not set out to “prove” an old earth and universe. Readers may fruitfully investigate that issue for themselves. Rather, the postings examine the history of the topic within the church in the last two centuries. Primarily, we examined the events of the 20th century. Understanding this background is at least as important as understanding the various scientific and theological interpretations surrounding the topic of creationism. Here is the link to the first post:

http://jasscience.blogspot.com/2010/01/deaths-cause-and-effect.html

VIBRANT DANCE SYMPOSIUM – In October 2010, an array of Christian leaders in the field of science assembled for three days in Austin, TX. Their sometimes differing views of origins made for interesting and informative exchanges. One of the most important discussion topics was the interaction between faith and science in the church setting. My ten posts reported on the presentations of nine different plenary speakers at the symposium:

http://jasscience.blogspot.com/2010/10/vibrant-dance-symposium.html

ISRAEL - Finally, anyone contemplating a visit to the Holy Land should read as much as possible prior to visiting. You will be better equipped to understand the history of past and current events in that country. My wife and I agreed that our visit to Israel in 2009 was, in many respects, the "trip of a lifetime." I submitted seven posts on the visit to the land where Jesus walked:

http://jasscience.blogspot.com/2009/04/miracle-of-israel.html

Wonder Wasps

Most children enjoy all manner of critters, including those in class insecta. They take pleasure in capturing, caressing, and controlling the creatures, at least for a brief time. Insects make up more than half of all the organisms on this earth. So it was not difficult to locate a few interesting ones in our neighborhood when our grandchildren visited the past several years--grasshoppers, walking sticks, katydids, butterflies, wasps, and ants, to name a few. Thousands of volumes have been written on the appearance and behavior of the one million insects already catalogued. For young children, however, nothing compares with informal “field studies.”

For the past several summers, great golden digger wasps have resided among the paver blocks in our driveway. Mention of the word wasps causes some people, both old and young, to shrink away or even react in unwarranted attack mode. One of Grandpa’s first tasks was to encourage a gentle, inquiring demeanor, including sitting still, being quiet, and observing thoughtfully. This strategy worked. We discovered most wasps, especially these types, known as “solitary wasps,” are not interested in attacking or stinging. After the wasp’s initial suspicion of the large animals observing her, she quickly resumed her busy excavating activity, descending her vertical tunnel only to emerge pulling out dirt and small pebbles and kicking them into a mound just outside the tunnel. The action continued until a large pile was formed.

Later we observed the wasp returning from the fields carrying anesthetized grasshoppers or katydids. After carefully laying its prey down it backed into its hole, then methodically dragged its victim down into one of the horizontal subterranean tunnels it had constructed. A single egg, deposited on each specimen it had acquired, would soon hatch into the larva stage and begin consuming the parental provision. The pupa stage remains in its sealed compartment over the winter only to hatch into an adult next summer and renew the same sequence of behaviors. In order to instill sentiments of respect for such wonderful creatures in my grandchildren, I have referred to the critters in our neighborhood with expressions such as “our” birds, “our” butterflies, or “our” wasps. In a real sense, they do belong to us.

Some may object that the predator-prey relationship manifest by such animals is a disturbing indicator of a creation gone awry. This is not the case. There is real purpose behind their existence and behavior. The digger wasp and tens of thousands of similar creatures do far more good than harm and generally should be left alone. Many function as population controllers for harmful organisms, natural recycling agents, and clean-up managers. In addition, many insects are valuable pollinators of food plants. Without them, human life would be impossible.

Evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was incorrect on many of his proposals, but coined the concept of ecology which he defined as “the comprehensive science of the relationship of the organism to the environment.” In the last fifty years there has been a strong movement encouraging the study of ecology and how its understanding and application benefit humanity. We give God the glory for creating such a large variety of animals and plants to occupy unique ecological niches.

The great golden digger wasp is a genetically programmed animal. It is unable to “think about” adapting to a slightly different sequence of events in its quest to provision its tunnel nursery. Such a degree of adaptation is typical of higher level animals. A sense of wonder is a natural outcome of an encounter with an animal such as the digger wasp because they are naturally equipped with marvelous inherent behaviors. Other varieties of digger wasps are programmed to use slightly different strategies for removing the dirt and stones from their tunnels. Instead of pulling, other species are pushers, carriers, or scrapers. Perhaps the Creator had a sense of humor when He designed unusual physical features and programmed the animals with diverse, unique behaviors.

We usually think more in terms of the wonders of higher animals such as vertebrates—mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. The writer of the Book of Job wrote majestic descriptions of such animals because they were more obvious and accessible, even though far less common in terms of the quantity of species. Only about 58,000 catalogued species exist of all five vertebrates combined.

Millions of species interrelate in ways mostly beneficial to the inhabitants of our planet. Our Creator has “provisioned” earth’s environment with countless creatures, great and small, for specific purposes. The more we understand the interactions of those creatures, the more we understand why God pronounced His creation “good” and “very good.” The Creator took pleasure inspecting His works. In our surroundings and in descriptive literature, we also have multiple opportunities to recognize purpose and take pleasure in God’s created creatures.

Keep It Simple

When we become adults our interactions assume a level of complexity we were unable or unwilling to assume as children. We think and interact with each other on many different topics. Three examples are religion, politics, and sometimes science. As children we absorbed the religion of our parents and for the most part, we accepted it without question. Likewise, our political awareness sprang largely from observations of our parents’ governance. Our blog concerns science, so we will include the common observation that children are budding scientists. They enjoy observing, capturing, collecting, testing what happens if…, and asking, “Why….?”

As we became older our religious, political, and scientific sophistication increased. We began to be more impacted by people outside our families and churches. In science, where discoveries are the most physically accessible, we continued to enjoy observing, collecting and inquiring. The added dimension of schooling provided more formal knowledge of facts and scientific procedures for investigating and discovering. This knowledge profits our children as they progress with their education.

Is there a downside to the acquisition of scientific knowledge in the setting of the public school? Christian creationist parents may be distressed to discover the level of indoctrination present in their children’s life science courses where evolution is the ruling paradigm. Many high school biology texts, in particular, relentlessly intone the term evolution, even when it serves no purpose for explaining the theory in the context of the discussion. Perhaps the spirit of evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky’s (1900-1975) hyperbolic utterance “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” functions as a rallying phrase in our biology classrooms. Contrariwise, mention of design theory or a creation alternative to explain even one of biology’s “big bangs,” such as the startlingly sudden appearance of bio-chemically complex bacterial earth life, could earn a teacher a trip to the courtroom for promoting religion in the classroom.

Our children’s crucial years prior to high school and college offer opportunities for parents and churches to make the most of our young folks’ fascination with details of the world of both living and non-living things. Instruction in both physical and functional design features of living things, as well as the precision and order of our physical world is within our capability, even for those children of pre-high school age. One of the finest appeals I have heard to church leaders regarding the use of science in our churches was presented by Deborah Haarsma of Calvin College during the October 2010 Vibrant Dance Symposium in Austin, TX. Here is the link to my post reporting on her talk:

http://jasscience.blogspot.com/2010/11/science-in-our-churches.html

Why do we title this post “Keep it Simple?” First, the Darwinian explanation of life and its origins complicates the simple concept that God created life suddenly on this earth, and new life forms over time, according to the Genesis account. This is far from a purely fideistic belief, because the fossil record is rife with clear indicators of sudden emergences of new and innovative forms. Evolutionary explanations of the development of life, which are diverse and often possess a high degree of uncertainty, make a simple concept difficult. We agree with philosopher William of Ockham (1285-1347), perhaps most famous for stating a principle later to become known as Ockham’s Razor: “Simpler is better.” It is also known as the Law of Parsimony. One writer claims it “shaves away unnecessary assumptions.”

Second, consider Stephen C. Meyer’s statement in his chapter “DNA, Darwin, and the Appearance of Design” from Signature in the Cell: “Even so, there is something curious about the scientific denial of our ordinary intuition about living things. For almost a hundred and fifty years, since its putative explanation by Darwinian theory, this impression of design persists as incorrigibly as ever.” Children, especially, who notice details, and ask, “Why?” or, “How did it get that way?” with sometimes wearying frequency, are satisfied with an answer such as “God created the butterfly that way and gave it those abilities.” A study of the natural world which even many atheistic scientists acknowledge having clear features of design, evokes in young an old an intuitive recognition of the work of God.

Recognition of order and design, productions of an intelligent agent, is rational to a far greater degree than a belief in random, chance events said to produce the incredible features of our cosmos and its life forms. The processes and discoveries of science have revealed this order and design. Before any of the recent discoveries involving the synthesis and structuring of proteins in body cells directed by RNA, the psalmist David exulted, as if presciently, “For you formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.” (Psalm 139:13-14 NASB) This intuition by Psalmist David enabled him to “keep it simple.”

On Board With Science

Were someone to deny the benefits of science in our modern world, he would be accused of being a crackpot. It is no exaggeration to say that science, particularly since the Scientific Revolution of the last four centuries, has changed our civilization. The previously untapped potential of science has burst upon the human race, and the benefits for mankind multiply with each passing decade. No one in the 16^th century could have envisioned what was in store; no one in the 21^st can accurately foresee what is yet to come.

The focus of this discussion will be the natural sciences—categorized generally as astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth science, meteorology, physics, and oceanography. These are also known as the hard sciences, not in terms of their difficulty, but in terms of our ability to discover knowledge in those fields empirically. We are able to quantify data through observation and experiment, using accepted scientific method.

Natural sciences are the basis for applied science. We credit applied science for the technology which powers our transportation, enables us to communicate instantly, provides medical knowledge to insure our health, affords multiple work-saving devices, supplies media entertainment, and makes quality foods of our choice available throughout all seasons. Cell phone technology was an unknown luxury a few decades ago, spurned by many with questions like, “Why do we need that?” Now we cannot imagine being out of immediate and potentially constant contact with our loved ones wherever they are. Access to instant weather radar enables us to become short term weather prognosticators. Years ago our automobiles were sometimes considered worn out at 70,000 miles. These days most well-maintained cars run like new with twice that mileage.

We need not be urged to “get on board with science” with respect to everyday applications of the hard sciences enumerated above. The implications and applications for our mundane experience are welcomed and generally non-controversial. In the area of philosophy of science, however, some controversy arises. Many members of our churches do not think very much about the philosophy of science. Philosophy of science is generally defined as concern with the assumptions, foundations, methods, and implications of science. It is in the area of implications of science and its reported findings that many people in our church pews experience problems “getting on board with science.”

Different branches of science include philosophical studies in their own respective disciplines. Among other topics, philosophers of biology spotlight evolution and its implications. Science philosophers in other branches of hard sciences may concentrate, for example, on the implications of our ever expanding technological innovations and the wide ranging effects of those rapid advances on society at large or on particular segments of society. Given that the field of biological science has especially strong appeal for those imbued with a naturalistic outlook, we would predict that philosophers in biological science would promote their findings in a manner to reflect an evolutionary view of life’s development, including humanity.

Accepting this philosophical implication has a major impact on the Christian worldview. On two fronts, conflicts exist. Evolutionary scientists have lively disagreements as they interpret their data, a predicted outcome of how normal science operates in all disciplines. More important, evolutionary scientists interpret their data within a framework of naturalism. They imply that the complex processes of life’s development--molecules to man--proceeded with God watching passively, if indeed, He exists at all.

On board with science? The phrase has an appealing ring. What young person in our day, immersed in the sea of advances brought by science, would not want to be on board with science? Proceed with caution. Interpretations of the biological data are variable, but the philosophers’ implications that ambiguous data all support naturalistic evolution do not vary. Science as a broad discipline was actively secularized by those antagonistic to religious viewpoints following the Civil War. Bioscience was part of the secularization.

As a science educator, I am enthusiastic about science and its remarkable potential. When we encourage people of any age to get on board with science, however, we must be sure we know which compartment of the vessel we are boarding.

Getting Our Attention

Politicians and preachers alike have again been reminding us about the possibility of God’s direct and deliberate intervention manifest in the world’s recent weather events and disasters. Do the east coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene signal the action of God to “get the attention of politicians,” as one politician exclaimed? In personal conversations my friends have wondered if these events signal the close approach of Christ’s end times return. We must read Christ’s very own words in Matthew 24:4-14 for enlightenment.

Natural and man-caused disasters will be common during the approach of the end of the age, the Matthew 24 passage tells us. This includes wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilence (disease), and earthquakes. Consider, however, that the approach of the “end” has been ongoing for at least 2000 years. Our Lord described events which could only be described as a general chronicle of human and natural history.

In our own neighborhood, 14 inches of rain pelted two or three counties in just eight hours one evening in late July, causing horrific damage and claiming the lives of two acquaintances in separate flash flooding incidents. A few weeks later the east coast experienced a rare earthquake and a major hurricane in little more than a week. During the past spring, terrible tornado outbreaks occurred in widely separated areas. Texas still suffers from extreme drought. Do such events signal the approach of the end more than the many tragic events on Planet Earth throughout its history?

The 2007 National Geographic Society publication Raging Forces…Life on a Violent Planet, puts the issues in perspective. Author George W. Stone begins his first chapter this way: “Our planet is a perpetually evolving, chronically violent, flame-singed, water-soaked, windswept, habitually inhospitable cosmic compound, wrapped around a molten iron heart, orbiting an atomic fireball. Our Earth home is by turns a life-sustaining sphere and a crucible of cataclysm, calamity, paroxysm, disease, disaster, and death. It always has been and always will be.” But our earth’s climate has provided superbly for human, animal, and plant life on this planet for thousands of years. It sustains nearly seven billion people, supplying them with food, mineral, and energy resources. It is a life-friendly planet, described in multiple verses in Genesis 1 as “good” or “very good.”

Individual geologic or weather events, nevertheless, can generate consternation and suffering even within the context of earth’s generally nurturing climate. Violent storms, droughts, and earthquakes have been a feature of our planet throughout its history. China experienced history’s most severe flood in 1931--up to three million dead. In 1815 Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora killed 92,000 in the planet’s largest volcanic eruption. The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1780 killed 22,000 in the Caribbean. China’s 1976 earthquake may have killed as many as 500,000. The 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquake was the most powerful ever to hit the United States. It would cause inconceivable destruction and death if it struck a populated area in our day. The 1972 Feb. 3-9 blizzard in Iran buried at least 4000 villagers in up to ten feet of snow and remains the deadliest blizzard in earth’s history. In the United States, the heat and drought of 8½ years during the 1930s caused the Dust Bowl and affected three-fourths of our country. Famine and pestilence have claimed uncounted millions throughout earth history.

The tale of thousands of other disasters, lesser than the ones described above, is one of heartbreak. But failure to focus our awareness on earth’s life-sustaining features is to commit a serious error. We must not fail to distinguish between “…the weather—a chaotic and dynamic system with immediate impact—and climate, which is the more stable and predictable average of weather when measured over time.” We must realize the benefits of looking at “the big picture.” God looked at the big picture, the completed earth, and pronounced it “very good.”

Matthew 24:15-51 continues describing the worldwide events ushered in at the time of the Great Tribulation. The verses from Matthew 24:4-14 describe conditions as they have existed from the time of Christ on up to and including our present day. Do unusual and seemingly frequent weather, geological events, famines, and pestilence signal a message from God that Christ’s return is close, or that He is “telling us something?” Perhaps that is true; perhaps it is not. We should not pretend to know the time line for His return. History shows such events have been occurring for thousands of years. At the very least the events instruct us in the operation of our physical world.

The words of Christ in Matthew 24 are true and reliable. History and statistics chronicle war threats, famines, earthquakes, persecution, executions, hate, falling away, lawlessness, betrayal, and the rise of false prophets--these have been occurring for millennia. The Great Tribulation events of an unknown future time described after Matthew 24:14 and in the Book of Revelation appear to make the events of our day seem gentle by comparison. We have general revelation--a reliable indicator of the reality of God in the beauty of the very good, functioning, fine tuned cosmos of which Planet Earth is a part. In addition we have the special revelation of God’s inspired word in scripture. We must not add or take away from either revelation.

Secularization of Science

Those who forget history are destined to repeat its mistakes. In one form or another, authorship of this statement is claimed by many. In the current lively area of science/faith issues, we would do well to remember the history of how science became completely secularized well over a century ago. Knowledge of the root of modern scientists’ antagonism toward intelligent design and creationism may not make their opposition any easier to accept. That knowledge may, however, help us develop a more meaningful and appropriate response to the ubiquitous design, creation, and theistic evolution squabbles rampant today in personal and media discussions.

From 1870 to 1930 a militant struggle, encompassing every facet of public life, occurred in the United States. Had this struggle been characterized by armed conflict as had been the tragic American Civil War, our children’s history textbooks might contain lengthy accounts. Rather, the struggle was a conflict of religious and secular activists for institutional control and authority: Who would be most influential interpreting the discoveries of science? Would a view of theistic reality help inform us, such as belief in the existence of God and His actions as Creator of the cosmos? Or would rigid secularism prevail? Secularism is the loss of religious authority in all aspects of life. This includes social life, education, and governance, and yes, science.

Sociologist Christian Smith in The Secular Revolution details the historical battle for secularization of our society. He describes the battle as “a profound cultural revolution which transformed cultural codes and structures of thought, expectation, and practice.” Smith often uses “revolutionary” to describe the struggle.

One chapter in Smith’s volume details the capture of science by the secularizers. Contributor Eva Marie Garoutte reminds us that for more than half of the 19^th century, inductive Baconian science undergirded scientific inquiry. Baconianism was the accumulation of knowledge through refined observation. Early scientific methodologist Francis Bacon (1561-1626) had stated, “Knowledge is the rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.” The practice of science through this Christian worldview lens was straightforward. The scientific laws discovered through Baconian induction “were understood teleologically as descriptions of the mediate intervention of the divine in the world,” Garoutte states. But dramatic post-Civil War changes were in store.

Over several decades the gospel of naturalism was spread publicly and militantly. As science became more popular, ambitious secularist scientists claimed the authority formerly accorded to theistic scientists. The secularization of higher education and the secularization of science went hand in hand. The positivists, who had stated that sense experience was the only path to authentic knowledge, won the day. Science, they said, could not inform us about God or any of God’s creative interventions in the cosmos. The domains of religion and science must be kept separate, they contended. The secularists insisted that science and religion did not constitute “a single, self-consistent whole,” Garoutte continues. “They were completely disjunct; they simply had nothing to say to each other."

How does this historical knowledge inform us today? Did the secular scientists make mistakes as they captured science for the “religion” of secularism? May we avoid repeating those mistakes of history? “What mistakes were made?” we may ask. For starters, consider the lack of scientific knowledge of the immediate post-Civil War decades. Gregor Mendel’s pea plant experiments were merely the start gate on man’s ever-widening journey of discovery in genetics. Scientists knew virtually nothing of the structural complexity and function of cells. Cosmology was in its infancy. Evidence for the origin of the universe did not exist. The exquisite precision of physical constants, the fine-tuning of hundreds of cosmic and terrestrial parameters, the mind-bending information contained in DNA, the protein building capability of the cell based on the DNA code…these are but a few of our discoveries.

The 21^st century mistake, more serious than the mistake made by the secularizers of science in the late 19^th century, is to disconnect science and faith after the example of Stephen J. Gould, who advocated the NOMA principle in 1997. Gould and many other science commentators have repeated the errors of the 19^th century secularizers. This is even more astonishing in light of our exponential increase in knowledge of our incredibly ordered cosmos.

My prayer is that Christians would not submit to the bondage of secularization with respect to the science/faith connection. Instead, they should prayerfully consider the most effective means to stage a counter-revolution. Eva Marie Garoutte suggests that to submit to the secularist science mentality is to submit to a “progressive” religion that makes peace with science by completely subordinating ourselves to it. Wise application of science provides countless God-gifted benefits. Early scientific thinkers saw that science and religion formed “a single, self-consistent whole.” Let us strive to recapture that vision.