[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: So the Scopes Monkey trial turns 100 this year. According to the myth propagated by champions of Darwinian evolutionary theory, the Scopes trial was a great showdown between ignorant fundamentalist religion and enlightened scientific progress.
This theme was crystallized by a play and later a movie loosely based on the Scopes trial called Inherit the Wind.
Is the spirit of Scopes alive and well today? Does it continue to hamper the advance of science by marginalizing skeptics of Darwinian evolution?
You bet it does.
Today I welcome back Dr. Casey Luskin to continue our conversation about the 100th anniversary of the Scopes trial.
Dr. Luskin is Associate Director of Discovery Institute's center for Science and Culture. He's a scientist and attorney with graduate degrees in science and law. He also holds a PhD in geology from the University of Johannesburg. Luskin is a California licensed attorney since 2005, practicing primarily in the area of evolution education in public schools and defending academic freedom for scientists who face discrimination because of their support for intelligent design.
His background gives him expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution.
In part one, Casey gave us some helpful historical background on the Scopes trial, the play and the movie that resulted from it, and some of the flashpoints since the Scopes trial that have heightened the debate over Darwinian evolution.
But even as the Scopes stereotypes were crystallizing in the public consciousness, skepticism about the power of Darwin's selection mutation mechanism continued to mount. And it wasn't just intelligent design scientists sharing their concerns about Darwinism. Prominent evolutionary scientists were doing it, too.
We'll also discuss how intelligent design has flourished in the last three decades despite the spirit of Scopes being alive and well.
Let's jump back into the conversation now.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: And it wasn't just intelligent design scientists who were pointing out problems with the Darwinian paradigm. I mean, prominent evolutionists were doing it too, right?
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Well, yeah. So in. In the 1960s, you had something called the Wistar Symposium. And this is very soon after they realized that you have information in the DNA that's encoding the genes. And what they said. One of the main points that came out from this Wistar Symposium, these were you. These were mainstream biologists and mathematicians. They were saying, look, we now know enough about, you know, computer code and computer language to know that when you make random changes, that tends to degrade the information content and the functionality, or if you look at language, if you make random changes to a human language, you tend to degrade that information. Content. And so the, one of the points that was made is how can we, as you know, the Neo Darwinian supporters in the Neo Darwinian model say that random mutations in the DNA are actually generating all this useful information when from our experience, random changes degrade information. And so that was the 1960s.
But then you have had, you know, basically modern Neo Darwinian theory had another 30 plus years to continue to develop. And then by the late 90s and early 2000s, you begin to have multiple leading evolutionary scientists who are acknowledging that modern Neo Darwinian theory had not explained the origin of new complex features. And there was this great line that's been used many times where they said that near the Neo Darwinian model explains the survival of the fittest, but it does not explain the arrival of the fittest. And so this has become a sort of a rallying cry for a lot of, I would say, you know, leading evolutionary scientists who are recognizing that the modern neo Darwinian model really does not account for a lot of what we see in biology. And so this is now it's been called the Third Way camp, where they reject Neo Darwinism and id, but they are looking at other ways of having the evolutionary process work where they're rejecting that random mutations are the basis for building biological complexity. And they have a lot of other criticisms of mainstream Neo Darwinism. And this view is also growing in prominence. So you have sort of this interesting situation today where Neo Darism, I mean officially it is still the. The main model of Neo Dominism today. Okay? In fact, a Third way scientist, James Shapiro, said last year, he said, quote, the ID argument has a valid point with regard to the explanatory limits of Neo Dominism, which is still widely regarded as the only legitimate scientific explanation of evolution. That's James Shapiro. Now, he is not pro intelligent design. He, he's a Third way evolutionary biologist who's a critic of Neo Darwinism, but who does not support id.
But what he's saying is, look, Neo Darwinism is still the dominant model. He's right about that. However, it's come under increasing attack by both folks from the ID camp and also folks from this Third Way camp where we're at right now. Is this really, I would call unstable place in evolutionary biology where folks are looking for a replacement model for Neo Darwinism, but they have not found one yet. None of the materialistic models of evolution, whether Neo Darwinism or some of these extended evolutionary synthesis models, none of them do a very good job of accounting for the origin of new complex biological Features like animal body plans or wings and eyes, that sort of stuff.
And so, and really, they. Nobody has solved the problem of Neo Darwinism yet. Neo Darwinism's inability to account for biological novelty has not been fixed by these post Darwinian third way extended evolutionary synthesis models. Idaho can account for it. But most, you know, mainstream scientists are not ready or willing to go there yet. But we're in this very unstable place where Neo Darwinism is kind of under huge critique. But we don't have a model that can fix the fundamental. At least a materialistic model that can fix the fundamental weakness of Neo Darwinism just yet. And so it'll be interesting to see where things go in the future. But that's kind of where evolutionary biology is at today.
[00:06:18] Speaker C: Yeah, but these critiques as they were.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Mounting did have a response.
[00:06:23] Speaker C: The Darwin lobby has been pushing back, you know, in recent decades, and that resulted in a surge of persecutions. We're talking tenure denials, job blacklisting, speech codes. I mean, give us a few examples just off the top of your head.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Of those who have paid the price.
[00:06:38] Speaker C: For their skepticism of Neo Darwinism.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Well, there's so many examples of this, Andrew. And I mean, and we've talked about this on, on ID the Future before, but basically, you know, for, for decades, there's been a pattern of discrimination against pro ID scientists. You want to talk about Richard Sternberg, who was a biologist at the Smithsonian. He allowed an ID friendly paper to be peer reviewed in a Smithsonian journal, and he was then harassed and he lost access to his research space. And a U.S. office of Special Counsel investigation found that they created a hostile work environment trying to get rid of him.
You could talk about a biology student or a doctoral student at Ohio State University who was doing a research project, a doctoral project on what happens when you teach students about scientific problems with evolution. And then three evolutionary biologists at Ohio State wrote a letter that claimed that there are no valid scientific data challenging macro evolution. And therefore they called the students teaching about problems with neo Darwinism, quote, unethical and deliberate miseducation, and he was forced out. Iowa State University, you had Guillermo Gonzalez, who was a highly productive researcher there, deserved tenure. He was forced out by his department when they voted on his tenure. And when we did public documents requests behind the scenes, we saw that they basically used Guillermo Gonzalez's support for ID as a litmus test for whether or not they should give him tenure. Okay, There have been speech codes. In 2005, at the University of Idaho, the president instituted a speech code where he said that evolution was, quote, the only curriculum that is appropriate for science classes. And this was done in direct retaliation against Scott Minick, who had just testified, a biology professor there who had just testified in favor of ID at the Dover trial, Jerry Coyne, who of course is a evolutionary biologist. And at the University of Chicago, he attacked biology Prof. Or sorry, physics professor Erica Dean, who at that time was at Iowa State University teaching an interdisciplinary seminar that briefly covered id and he brought the Freedom of Religion foundation against Ball State. They then basically went after Eric he Dean, and ultimately he Dean was not allowed to teach the course the way he wanted. And in fact, the president of that time at Ball State University issued a speech code that declare that intelligent design is not appropriate for science classes at their university.
And so we see all this discrimination against intelligent design.
Two things that are very interesting here, okay?
Number one, it's not just intelligent design theorists who have lamented the fact that they face discrimination, okay? Even some of these third way evolutionary scientists have lamented the fact that they don't have the freedom to. To critique evolution.
I'm thinking of people like Jerry Fedor and Massimo Piatelli Palmerini. He wrote a book called Darwin Got Wrong. They're atheists. They acknowledge this. And they said, we've been told that even if Darwin was substantially wrong to claim that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution, nonetheless we shouldn't say so, not anyhow in public. To do that, however inadvertently, is to align oneself with the force of darkness. They go on to say, neo Darwinism is taken as axiomatic. It literally goes unquestioned. A view that looks to contradict it, either directly or by implication is ipso facto rejected. Entire departments, journals and research centers now work on this principle.
A German theoretical biologist named Gunther Theisen, he said it is dangerous to raise attention to the fact that there is no satisfying explanation for macroevolution. One easily becomes a target of orthodox evolutionary biology and a false friend of proponents of non scientific concepts. I could go on and on about this, but even mainstream evolutionary biologists, I mean, Lynn Margulis, who was a leading evolutionary scientist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, she said that if you become a critic of Darwinism, that you are quote, dismissed as if you're a Christian fundamentalist zealot or racial bigot, and you become Persona non grata. Now, where does that behavior come from, okay? That we see all this discrimination against both intelligent design, critics of neo Darwinism, and even mainstream evolutionary scientists who just disagree with the Darwinian consensus that you know, that random mutation can build complexity and those kinds of views. Where does this come from? How exactly does, how does discrimination work? Okay, and I want to make it really clear here. I am not saying that there is some kind of a grand conspiracy theory here to suppress intelligent design, but the pattern that we see here doesn't come from nowhere. In fact, the dynamics of persecution against pro ID scientists are very similar. And also third wave scientists. The dynamics are very similar to the sort of institutionalized discrimination that is widely acknowledged to exist against women, racial minorities and other groups. Basically, this is how it works. Okay? It starts with stereotypes. Negative stereotypes become promoted in a culture and these then lead to prejudice against individuals belonging to certain groups. And over time you get self selection in institutions where that prejudice becomes deeply embedded in the cultures of institutionalize. And that prejudice, eventually, when, you know, folks who hold those prejudiceal views gain enough power, that then leads to outright, outright discrimination, which is often manifested as actions taken to marginalize individuals belonging to these disfavored groups. So it's not hard to imagine how negative stereotypes and prejudice against critics of Darwinian evolution has become widespread in this culture. And this takes us back to the Scopes trial, right? In fact, I think the prime super spreading suspect of prejudice against Darwin skeptics in our culture is the movie Inherit the Wind, which is supposed to be telling what, you know, what happened during the Scopes trial doesn't tell the true history.
But you know, this has been shown all throughout the country and it's perpetuating stereotypes of Darwin's critics as backwards ignoramuses and evolutionists as the ones who have the moral authority.
And so I would say the, that it is these kinds of, of cultural sort of, you know, retellings of the Scopes trial that have promoted a lot of these prejudice and the stereotypes that has led to this discrimination. And if you don't think it has an effect, consider this fact. Okay? During the Dover trial, which has been called Scopes 2, by the way, Wiley called the Scopes 2, Judge Jones in that trial said that he was going to watch Inherit the Wind for historical context. Okay, so what is it telling him? It's telling him that basically if you are a skeptic of Darwin, then you are a backwards, dangerous religious fundamentalist who's trying to ban science. Now, yes, what the Tennessee state legislature did is indefensible. You should never be banning scientific theories. But what did Judge Jones then do in the Dover trial? He banned intelligent design in Dover school districts. And in fact, a number of the Persecution stories that we've, we, we've had and some of the ones we've talked about, they actually cited this, the Dover ruling as justification for why they needed to basically burn ID at the stake and get it out of the academy. Okay. They were citing Judge Jones's ruling. Okay. So it has absolutely inspired persecution and discrimination and censorship against intelligent design.
And, and we see this. So this gives you sort of a cultural, I think, hopefully a cultural understanding of how the law, media and science have worked together to suppress criticisms of evolution. And again, this is not a conspiracy theory. I'm not making this up. We have leading evolutionary scientists, Lynn Margulis, members of the National Academy of Science, you know, people who are not even in the ID community who are saying this is going on.
And I, plenty of examples of ID theorists are being discriminated against. It's not some big conspiracy theory. It's the way that discrimination normally works where you just have prejudice, stereotypes leading to marginalization and discrimination. We see this in many other fields. Why not an id? All the facts are there. It fits the normal pattern quite, quite frankly, quite well.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Yeah, and I like the way you put the Scopes trial and Inherit the Wind being that super spreader event that promoted that suppression and oppression of Darwin skeptics.
So we can see the spirit of Scopes is alive and well. But in the last 20 years progress has definitely been made. I mean ID has not stood still. There's been a lot of new discoveries coming out in the last few decades that help to build that strong cumulative.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Case for intelligent design.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Right, Absolutely. We've talked about this before. But one of the most exciting things that's going on in ID really, you know, in the last 20, 25 years this, this was going on pre Dover, but we've had a renaissance post over is scientific research and we recently saw the ID peer reviewed scientific paper tally go over 300, which is really exciting. So we're publishing peer reviewed scientific research in mainstream scientific journals. We're seeing research that's showing the evidence for design in proteins, in molecular machines, in, in orphan genes, in overlapping genes, in the design of the engineering design of biological systems. I mean we're not going to elaborate this too much right now, but you can go to our website, discovery.org, we have a research homepage and also a peer reviewed list of articles there as well. So we are seeing that ID is becoming a very successful and productive scientific research program. And I, this is my main job here. You know, I enjoy talking about the legal side of things. And when those issues come up, I am an attorney. I do deal with those things, Andrew. But my main job here at Discovery is I direct our research program. And this is what I love doing. I get to work with fantastic scientists all around the world and we get to fund and support their research and see what they're discovering, the evidence for intelligence. And I want to say something. There are quite a few researchers in our ID research community who can't even be even be public that they are supporting ID and doing ID research. And that is precisely because of the fact that there is real discrimination in the scientific community against id.
[00:17:09] Speaker C: Now, does this all mean that ID now gets a voice in academia's ivory tower as scopes turns 100?
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I think ID is increasingly getting a voice, but there are still a lot of folks who want to suppress that voice.
In fact, I've got a little story to tell here. This July, there is a Scopes quote Monkey Trial centennial symposium taking place at Vanderbilt University. It's co organized by the national center for Science Education, which is a leading anti ID activist group. And this is a very interesting supposing. They got a great slate of speakers, including many credible voices from science, philosophy, law, other fields, all of them, you know, very worthy of participation. Yet there are zero, to my knowledge, and I'm pretty sure about this, there are zero pro ID scientists or scholars who are included in the symposium. Now here's the irony of it, okay? They are supposed to be celebrating, you know, the overcoming of suppression of science, and yet they are promoting this sort of one sided pro evolution only view. They're doing sessions on the Scopes trial. I'm sorry, of course they're doing on discussion on the Scopes trial. They're also doing sessions on the Dover trial, they're doing sessions on intelligent design, and yet they did not invite a single Darwin doubting pro ID scientist or scholar to participate in their event. And here's where it gets even worse.
I went on the Vanderbilt University website and they have a webpage called Dialogue Vanderbilt. It's a great page. It louds the importance of quote, bringing together people of differing viewpoints for the purpose of quote, challenging conventional wisdom and quote, fostering courageous and vigorous debate. Okay? So on the Vanderbilt University website they talk about the importance of basically bringing in diverse viewpoints, even for the purpose of having controversial conversations about ideas that might, that might be challenging to people, okay? And they talk about how a university that does not do this is failing in its mission as a university.
And yet the organizers of this scope symposium apparently did not feel that these praiseworthy academic freedom principles are important enough to cause them to invite a single Darwin Dowding scientist. And I actually emailed the organizers of the symposium and I said, hey, I'm just letting you guys know that I think this sounds like a great symposium you guys are doing. If you are interested in having a Darwin Dowding scientist, an ID friendly scientist, I would be happy to give you a list of names. You could pick just one to participate. And I quoted this language from the Vanderbilt website and said, look, Vanderbilt is supposed to be engaging in dialogue and having different views coming together. But I don't think that your symposium is doing that. I would love to help you fix this problem. Guess what happened, Andrew?
[00:19:56] Speaker C: Did they respond at all?
[00:19:57] Speaker A: They didn't even reply to my email. They didn't even give me the courtesy of a response. Okay? I'm a leading voice in this, in this debate, okay? I've got a PhD in science. I'm an attorney.
I'm not a scary person. I'm a nice guy. I have a history of, you know, gracious dialogue with folks. I've dialogued, I've, I've shared the stage with folks from the NCSC before and we had very friendly conversations. I'm very happy to do that. And I would come there or not just have me could have been any people, anybody from our community. We've got a whole large number of wonderful, gracious, intelligent scientists in our community. They had zero interest in even responding to my email, inviting them to have a conversation about, you know, inviting just one person.
So this is what we're up against today. Intolerance is alive and well in the scientific community. And you know, one of the things I said to them in the email is I said, look, over the last five years we've seen a real crisis. And I, they, they're completely aware of what I'm about to say that the public is losing trust in, in the scientific community because they believe that it's become politicized. Okay? I don't like that. I love science. I don't want this to happen. But look, I said to them, I said, you have an opportunity here to show the public that actually you are interested in real dialogue over important topics like evolution.
They didn't even respond to my email. So this is the mindset that still is alive and well among many evolutionists and evolutionary scientists and scholars in the scientific and academic community Day. They want to pretend like there's no dialogue, no debate to be had, and they are refusing to have a real scientific debate on this issue. And they're trying to suppress people who disagree with them. Normally when folks feel comfortable that the evidence is on their side, they don't behave like this. They, in fact, they think it's wonderful to have a conversation.
So for some reason, these folks are not willing to have a conversation. I think it's very damaging to science and I think it's very unfortunate because this was a real missed opportunity for them to help take a little step to restoring the public's trust in science. And unfortunately they chose not to do that. And I really, I wish they had, because I want to see science trust restored in science. And it's unfortunate this happened especially at.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: A conference, that or symposium that was meant to mark 100 years in scopes. I mean, just what a missed opportunity and how ludicrous. They didn't even give you the courtesy of a response.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: What an irony, right? Where they're going to be basically remembering the dangers of censoring science. And rightly so. I mean, what they did in Tennessee 100 years ago was bad. Right? Nobody, by the way, to my knowledge, is trying to ban evolution today. I mean, this is just not where it's at. If you look at the kinds of bills that are being promoted by Darwin skeptics today, it's all about increasing academic freedom. It's not about banning ideas, but we can leave that aside. But you know, they're, they're doing the symposium to remember the dangers of censorship, and yet they themselves refuse to allow views that disagree with them to share the stage of their symposium. How ironic and how sad. This brings us back to something else that Justice Scalia said. He now said that today we're living in an era of what he called Scopes in reverse. And that really is exactly what's going on here, Andrew. We have Scopes in reverse. A hundred years ago, it was the fundamentalist, you know, whatever folks who were trying to ban evolution.
But today evolution supporters are seeking to exclude non evolutionary views or non neo Darwinian views from education, from science. So the power dynamic has shifted 180 degrees, but the problem is still there.
[00:23:35] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great way to put it.
Well, in your view, how do we move beyond the myths and the stereotypes of Scopes in the future? How do we rescue signs from the damage that's been done from Scopes and from Inherit the Wind?
[00:23:48] Speaker B: How do we move past this?
[00:23:50] Speaker A: Well, you know, like so many problems facing society today, Andrew, I think that one of the best ways forward is Increased dialogue. I think that evolutionists know this and they know that dialogue. Some evolutionists feel that dialogue is threatening to their power structure and so they don't want to have that. But you know, contrary to maybe some people's opinions, most evolutionary biologists are not fire breathing atheists who want to destroy religion. And contrary to the Inherit the Wind stereotype, almost no scientific Darwin skeptics are cranky fundamentalists who want to ban evolution. So we've got a lot of room for dialogue here. And in fact, in particular Third way scientists, I think they are very open and more open to discussion, their neo Darwinian counterparts. I had the opportunity to do a fantastic dialogue with Dennis Noble, a Third way physiologist from Oxford University last year. I'm hoping that's going to come out later this year online. And he was very happy to have dialogue and we didn't, there were things we didn't agree on. He does not support intelligent design, nor would I ever claim he did. But he understands what it's like to have his viewpoint be suppressed by the neo Darwinian power structure.
And you know, we understand that too. So we have that in common. And I think that some of those folks are, have empathy about this viewpoint suppression issue and are willing to have dialogue. So maybe that's a good place to start, would be common ground agreement that intellectual freedom is a fundamental good and that certain, you know, popular voices spreading toxic discourse on the Internet. I won't name any names right now. Professor DAVE but they're damaging the public conversation because they're really not allowing people to have serious, scientifically substantive dialogue on this topic. And so I think that when we see folks of goodwill from different perspectives willing to have that conversation, that is the way forward. And I hope more, more folks will be willing to do that. I can tell you that us at Discovery Institute, we are all in. You want to have serious, thoughtful, friendly, civil, non calling names dialogue. We at Discovery Institute are 100% in for that.
If you're in for that to reach out to us, we'd love to, we'd love to participate in friendly discourse with you.
[00:26:00] Speaker C: Well, there it is, folks at Vanderbilt, I hope you're listening, and elsewhere around the country, we are all in and we want you to be as well. Casey, thanks for giving us the lowdown on the 100th anniversary of the Scopes trial. You know, it's sobering in some respects, but still lots of cause for celebration. So appreciate you joining me today.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: It is sobering. We've got a lot of work needs to be done to restore intellectual freedom in science and in academia today.
I mean, we're not the only people saying this. There are people from many different on many different topics who are lamenting the lack of academic freedom. But, you know, evolution, we like to say they were canceling us before cancellation was even a thing, and they actually honed their cancellation tactics, tactics on us. ID theorists. We joke when we say that, but unfortunately there's actually some truth to it. And now cancellation and viewpoint suppression and politicization in science and academia has exploded. It's even worse than it was, you know, when they were just trying to. Trying to get rid of us. So hopefully this can change. Yeah.
[00:26:59] Speaker C: Now, if people listening or watching want to follow our coverage of the Scopes anniversary and the trial, can you tell us where they would go?
[00:27:08] Speaker A: Well, we've got some articles and materials coming out on evolutionnews.org I'm also a senior editor for Salva Magazine, and Salvo has a fantastic Scopes centennial issue coming out later this year in 2025. I think it's going to be a really nice treatment. Have multiple voices, academics, scholars, writers from different perspectives talking about Scopes and this overall topic. It's a really nice collection of articles.
[00:27:33] Speaker C: Okay, so we'll look out for that. A full themed issue from Salvo magazine. And of course, you can follow our continuing coverage on these and other matters related to intelligent design and
[email protected] well, for ID the Future, this is Dr. Casey Luskin. I'm Andrew McDermott. Thanks for joining us.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: ID the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
