There are a number of lawsuits about the teaching of evolution in the United States in addition to the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1927: Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), and Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005). This conflict is analogous to the conflict about global warming/climate change. You can’t fully understand the conflict about climate if you do not understand the conflict about evolution.
There is no disagreement about evolutionary biology between scientists with a Doctorate of Philosophy in biology. There is no such thing as a Doctorate of Philosophy in climatology, and there are major disagreements among scientists about climate. This is why it is easier to understand the conflict about evolution than about climate.
The reason the two conflicts are analogous is that both are connected to disagreements about religion. This is very obvious in the conflict about evolution, but less obvious in the conflict about climate. The main opponents of evolutionary biology are Creationists and advocates of the theory of intelligent design to explain common descent (ID). Creationists interpret the Bible literally and believe God created the universe in seven days. Advocates of ID argue that there is a spiritual person that caused the animal and plant kingdoms to descend with modification from bacteria in about a billion years. Advocates of ID don’t understand that the knowledgeable and intelligent argument for God’s existence is based on the assumption or hope that the universe is intelligible and the metaphysical proposition that humans are finite beings and God is an infinite being. According to the method of inquiry called metaphysics, the Big Bang, the origin of life, common descent, and the fact that the mass of an electron is exactly 0.00000000000000000000000000000091 kilograms is evidence that God does not exist because it is evidence that the universe is not intelligible.
Conflict About Climate
On June 26, 2009, by a vote of 219 to 212, the House of Representatives voted for the American Clean Air and Security Act. It did not become law because it did not reach the Senate. This act required expenditures and regulations with the goal of decreasing the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity. Only 8 Republicans voted for the act, and only 44 Democrats voted against it. Remembering that in climatology all measurements have a margin of error, the following two propositions are true. 1) Democrats agree with scientists who say an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can have an effect on climate that is so bad it makes sense to spend billions of dollars to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by burning coal, oil, and gas. 2) Republicans agree with scientists who say spending money to get solar and wind power is a waste because increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has either a good effect on climate or a very small effect.
Forgetting about Southern Democrats, Republicans are more religious than Democrats. This is enough to establish the connection between the climate conflict and evolution conflict. However, there is another way to justify the connection. People following the religions originating in the Near East, China, and India believe that when they die their past is somehow gathered up and becomes the defining moment in their lives. Christians talk about storing up treasures in heaven. People who think that life ends in the grave do not have meaningful lives. They may have meaningful family lives and work lives, but there is no sense in which their life has meaning. It can be argued that this makes people who think life ends in the grave prone to irrational beliefs, like socialism and environmentalism. Fighting for socialism or some other irrational cause makes a person’s life meaningful. Socialists achieved power in Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, and Communist China. This means that irrational people or bad guys can be politically successful. Are advocates of ID and creationists the bad guys or are PhDs in biology the bad guys. The following two quotes prove that the bad guys are the PhDs in biology.
The Science of Biological Evolution
This quote disgraces every biologist in the United States because it is from a biology textbook used by 65% of biology majors:
And certain properties of the human brain distinguish our species from all other animals. The human brain is, after all, the only known collection of matter that tries to understand itself. To most biologists, the brain and the mind are one and the same; understand how the brain is organized and how it works, and we’ll understand such mindful functions as abstract thought and feelings. Some philosophers are less comfortable with this mechanistic view of mind, finding Descartes’ concept of a mind-body duality more attractive. (Neil Campbell and Jane Reece, Biology, 4th edition, p.776)
The following quote is from a philosopher who is an atheist. The quotation is not as ignorant and irrational as the textbook quote because it gives all four solutions to questions about “the brain and the mind” and promotes the solution taught by Thomas Aquinas (“monism”), a philosopher whose teachings are endorsed by the Catholic Church. What is objectionable and malicious is that Professor Nagel implies that the Catholic Church teaches “dualism” by saying “dualism” is a “traditional” theory. What is good about the quote is the truth of the title of the book, which was published by the Oxford University Press.
Among the traditional candidates for comprehensive understanding of the relation of mind to the physical world, I believe the weight of evidence favors some from of neutral monism over the traditional alternatives of materialism, idealism, and dualism. (Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, 2012, location 69)
We don’t need an atheist to tell us that the Campbell and Reece quotation is “Certainly False.” Campbell and Reece say one of the “properties of the human brain” is that it “tries to understand itself.” The authors are using the word human as an adjective to modify the word brain. A property of a gorilla brain is that its mass is 400 grams, which is much less that the mass of a human brain (1400 grams). A property of the sky is that it is blue. Another property of the human brain is that it consists of 200 million cells. The point is that the word property refers to sense observations. When scientists read a CAT scan or measure the size of something with a ruler, they are using their sense of sight.
The Difference Between Scientific and Non-Scientific Observations
There is another kind of observation human beings are capable of and that most PhDs in biology do not like. A PhD in biology is like the guy who collects minerals and arranges them according to their color. He builds a chest of drawers and labels them the colors of the rainbow. He finds a blue mineral and puts it in the blue draw, a red mineral in the red draw, and so on. One day, he finds a white mineral. He goes to his chest of drawers and says, “White minerals don’t exist.”
This hated kind of observation arises from our ability to make ourselves the subject of our own knowledge. There are five such observations, at least, and each one gives rise to a question. In science, we observe that the sky is blue and ask why. Scientists did not know the answer until Albert Einstein did statistical calculations on density fluctuations in the atmosphere. In science, there is an excellent track record of success and progress. There is very little success in answering questions that arise from observations coming from our transcendence. What follows is five observations and the questions they raise:
- I observe that I can move my hand about any way I want. But if I lose my hand in an accident, I continue to exist. My hand is something that I have. What is the relationship between my self and my hand?
- Knowing that the sky is blue means more than that light is entering my eyes and a signal is going to my brain. It means an awareness of this. What is this awareness?
- I think, therefore, I am (cogito ergo sum). How do I know I exist and what does the word exist mean?
- I can look at a tree, close my eyes, and create an image of the tree in my mind. What is an image?
- Things change and I can remember the changes. The past and the future are mental beings. The past and future do not exist. What are mental beings?
Campbell and Reece are aware of an example of this kind of observation because they say of the “human brain” that it “tries to understand itself.” However, they obscure the fact that this is a different kind of observation by attributing the observation to the human brain instead of to the human mind, or better yet, to a human being. A human being or the human mind has a drive to know and understand everything, not just “itself.”
In the next sentence, Campbell and Reece acknowledge the difference between the mind and the brain because they say, “the brain and mind are one” and refer to this opinion as the “mechanistic view of mind.” Campbell and Reece admit that the question of whether or not “the brain and mind are one” is a philosophical question because they attribute the dissenting view to “some philosophers” and call the dissenting view “dualism.”
If the “brain and mind are one,” it is reasonable to think human beings evolved from animals. But the brain and mind are not one. A person who thinks that human beings evolved from animals is like a person who thinks they are Napoleon. Such a person is crazy, or could be lying to live for free in an insane asylum. Lying is not just saying something untrue and knowing it is untrue. If you yell fire in a crowded theatre and people get trampled to death, it is a lie if there was no fire even if you sincerely thought there was a fire. Campbell and Reece are liars because they are giving the two most irrational solutions to what is called the mind-body problem, not the mind-brain problem. They are doing harm because this deception refutes the argument for God’s existence, God being the name Judaism, Christianity, and Islam give to the infinite being that created the universe of finite beings and revealed that we pay for our sins when we die but can hope for perfect fulfillment based on our experience in this world.
One can also accuse Campbell and Reece of lying because they imply that we may someday understand “mindful functions like abstract thought.” An example of abstract thought is the concept of infinity. We know, for example, that a geometric line is infinitely long and infinitely narrow. We arrive at the concept of infinity by looking at a ribbon and creating an image of the ribbon in our minds, not our brains. Then we suppose that the ribbon is infinitely long and infinitely narrow. It is okay to say we may someday understand abstract thought as long as you point out that it is not a scientific question, but a metaphysical or philosophical question.
The Four Solutions to the Mind-Body Problem
1) Cartesian dualism is the idea that behind our eyes is a spiritual “little man” that controls the body like a driver controls a stagecoach. There is no evidence for this theory and it conflicts with the fact that a stagecoach and driver are two beings. A human being is a single unified being. Another kind of dualism is the Catholic idea that when a person dies their “soul” goes to purgatory. This is just theological speculation to account for the gap between our death and the Second Coming of Jesus. I put “soul” in quotes because “soul” and “body” really refer to the metaphysical category of form (soul) and matter (body) as applied to human beings. The soul is the metaphysical principle or incomplete being that makes us superior to animals. The body is the principle or incomplete being that makes us different from one another. The soul is spiritual because we can comprehend what makes us superior to animals, but can’t define free will and conscious knowledge of humans as opposed to the sense knowledge of animals.
2) Materialism is not as irrational as dualism because it is reasonable to think an animal is a collection of molecules and that gorillas evolved from bacteria.
3) Idealism is far more rational than dualism and materialism. George Berkeley invented idealism while he was sitting on a rock and contemplating the universe. He figured that he existed because God created him. But why did God create the rock? God obviously created the rock so Berkeley would have something to sit on. But God has infinite power and could just as easily create the illusion that the rock exists. Hence, there is no reason to think the material world is real. Idealism is also irrational because our interaction of material objects is very static. Our interaction with human beings is very dynamic. If you get into an argument with a friend about who owns a pen and your friend gets mad and pokes you with the pen, it will hurt. There is no question that your friend and the pen are real.
4)The solution judged to be true by rational people and supported by the evidence is that the mind-body problem is a mystery with the understanding that there are no mysteries in science. Thomas Nagel calls this “neutral monism.” According to Thomas Aquinas, unity is a property of beings. I am not a collection of molecules. I am a single unified being. The universe or a stamp collection is not a being, it is many beings. Nagel is saying all we know is that human beings exist. We can’t say what a human being is. This is perfectly consistent with saying that the human soul is spiritual, that humans are embodied spirits or spirited bodies, that humans are indefinabilites that become conscious of their own existence, or that human beings did not evolve from animals.
What Does Evolutionary Biology Teach Us?
Who are the more malicious liars? Creationists who say that God created Eve from Adam’s rib or Campbell and Reece who imply and argue that human beings evolved from animals? Which is the more malicious lie? Saying that there is an “intelligent designer” or saying that ID is not testable?
To understand the conflict about ID, it is necessary to understand that no mainstream biologist with a PhD thinks natural selection and the various other mechanisms explain common descent. I offer the following quotes as proof.
P. falciparum, HIV, and E. coli are all very, very different from each other. They range from the simple to the complex, have very different life cycles, and represent three different fundamental domains of life: eukaryote, virus, and prokaryote. Yet they all tell the same tale of Darwinian evolution. Single simple changes to old cellular machinery that can help in dire circumstances are easy to come by. This is where Darwin rules, in the land of antibiotic resistance and single tiny steps…There is no evidence the Darwinian process can take the multiple, coherent steps needed to build new molecular machinery, the kind of machinery that fills the cell. (Michael J. Behe, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, 2007, page 162)Note: Michael Behe is a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University. He is not a mainstream biologist because he is an advocate of ID. I am maintaining that all biologists agree with this quote but are very circumspect in expressing the truth for reasons that reflect poorly on their character.
The history of life presents three great sources of wonder. One is adaptation, the marvelous fit between organism and environment. The other two are diversity and complexity, the huge variety of living forms today and the enormous complexity of their internal structure. Natural selection explains adaptation. But what explains diversity and complexity? (Daniel McShae and Michael Brandon, Biology's First Law: The Tendency for Diversity and Complexity to Increase in Evolutionary Systems, 2010, location 78)
By the time Darwin came to publish On the Origin of Species in 1859, he had amassed enough evidence to propel evolution itself, though still not natural selection, a long way towards the status of fact. Indeed, it was this elevation from hypothesis towards fact that occupied Darwin for most of his great book. The elevation has continued until, today, there is no longer any doubt in any serious mind, and scientists speak, at least informally, of the fact of evolution. All reputable biologists go on to agree that natural selection is one of its most important driving forces, although —as some biologists insist more than others—not the only one. Even if it is not the only one, I have yet to meet a serious biologist who can point to an alternative to natural selection as a driving force of adaptive evolution—evolution towards positive improvement.(Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, 2009, p. 18)Note: Notice that Dawkins modifies the word evolution with the word adaptive.
Facilitated variation is not like orthogenesis, a theory championed by the eccentric American paleontologist Henry Osborn (1857–1935), which imbues the organism with an internal preset course of evolution, a program of variations unfolding over time. Natural selection remains a major part of the explanation of how organisms have evolved characters so well adapted to the environment. (Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart, The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma, 2005, page 247)
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.(Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species)
Note: Christine Kenneally is an expert in linguistics, not biology. She obviously gets her information from articles that are not-peer reviewed and books that argue against Creationism and ID.
They [Pinker and Bloom] particularly emphasized that language is incredibly complex, as Chomsky had been saying for decades. Indeed, it was the enormous complexity of language that made is hard to imagine not merely how it had evolved but that it had evolved at all…..But, continued Pinker and Bloom, complexity is not a problem for evolution. Consider the eye. The little organ is composed of many specialized parts, each delicately calibrated to perform its role in conjunction with the others. It includes the cornea,…Even Darwin said that it was hard to imagine how the eye could have evolved…….And yet, he explained, it did evolve, and the only possible way is through natural selection—the inestimable back-and-forth of random genetic mutation with small effects…Over the eons, those small changes accreted and eventually resulted in the eye as we know it. (Christine Kenneally, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, 2007, page 59)
The theory of intelligent design (ID) is irrational because there is no evidence for it. PhDs in biology, who do not advocate ID, like to say ID is not testable or is not science. This brings a smile to the faces of advocates of ID because it is such an absurd rebuttal. Telling an advocate of ID that there was no evidence for it would make the advocate of ID angry. The ID advocate would respond: What is your explanation for common descent? The PhD would have to admit that there was no explanation for common descent other than ID. Many people consider this fact to be evidence that God exists, not as evidence that God does not exist.
Conclusion
One of the arguments used to promote legislation like the American Clean Air and Security Act is that practically all scientists agree that carbon dioxide emission from burning fossil fuel is very bad and dangerous. It is not easy to arrive at a definition of scientists, exactly what they agree about, and what percent do not agree. However, in the conflict about evolutionary biology 90% of scientists with PhDs in biology agree that human beings evolved from animals.
