Speaker 1 00:00:05 ID the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
Speaker 2 00:00:12 Greetings. I'm Tom Gilson. The Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture offers online education we think you'll want to know about. It's called Discovery U, and it's easy to
[email protected]. Today we have a preview for you, three mini lectures, about six or seven minutes each from Discovery Institute senior fellow Jonathan Wells, introducing his course, investigating evidence for and against evolution.
Speaker 3 00:00:43 We're taught in our public schools and universities that we all got here by evolution. This is an important theory. It's very prominent in our culture, and it's very important to know it, to understand it. So I'm gonna take a critical look at evolution in these lectures. I'm not gonna be defending biblical creation or even intelligent design, except in passing. Instead, what I'm going to be presenting is a critical analysis of arguments and evidence for and against evolution. But my initial question, how did I get here, has a double meaning. The second part of the meaning is how did I get here personally in my own thinking? I started out as an undergraduate college undergraduate at Princeton University in 1960. I studied geology, which in those days was quite exciting. Those were the days when the theory of drifting continents was still controversial. It had been proposed many decades earlier, but many people doubted it.
Speaker 3 00:01:41 And Princeton geologists were among those who provided evidence that helped eventually to resolve the controversy, and I was right there in the thick of it. Although I was aware of the controversy over drifting continents, I was not aware of any controversy over evolution as far as I knew all my professors believed it, and I never questioned it. Although I did well in my courses at Princeton, I dropped out in my third year to find myself, as we used to say in those days, well, I did find myself actually eligible for the draft. So I was drafted into the US Army where I did two years of active duty. During that time that I was in the army, the Vietnam War had escalated and I had become personally opposed to it. So when I was separated in 1966, the University of California at Berkeley was a hotbed of anti-Vietnam war sentiment, and so I transferred there.
Speaker 3 00:02:32 I wanted to finish up my undergraduate degree, and I studied physics and biology. I was an opponent of the war, but I was a non-violent opponent. I was actually a follower of, uh, the ideas of Gandhi. Well, the army called me back up in 1967 to serve on reserve duty, and as an opponent of the war and a believer in non-violent resistance, I refused. I ended up being arrested, put in prison where I eventually spent a year and a half. When I got out in 1969, Berkeley was a buzz with controversy over what was called People's Park. Some activists on the far left had taken over some land owned by the university and declared it to be people's park. Things got quite violent. The violence of the leftist activist actually turned me off repelled by them. When I left Berkeley, I went to the mountains and literally built a cabin in the mountains of Northern California.
Speaker 3 00:03:24 While I was there, I was impressed by what was around me, the plants, the animals. I had never questioned evolution. I had never questioned that all this had happened basically by accident. But now I found myself questioning that I just couldn't believe that all these plants and animals were there by accident. I started meditating and praying and reading. The Bible became interested in religion and the idea that these things were created by design. I ended up studying theology in New York, but I was still interested in evolution. So I would spend several days a week at the Columbia University Biology Library reading about evolution and especially DNA mutations. I went on to earn a PhD at Yale in 1978, but I was still interested in both theology and science. So although I studied classical Christian theology at Yale, I did my PhD research on the 19th century Darwinian controversies.
Speaker 3 00:04:19 In particular, I did research on Princeton theologian, Charles Hodge, who was a critic of Darwinism. He objected that it was not based on sufficient evidence, but he also criticized it on theological grounds, not because of the age of the earth, but because Darwin's theory excluded design for hodge that was tantamount to atheism. So I finished at Yale in 1985 with a PhD in theology, but I still felt the need to learn more about the evolution controversies. I wanted to learn the biological aspects. So in 1988, I applied for several PhD programs in biology. I was turned down the first year, but in 1989, tried again and was accepted to several schools, and I chose to go back to Berkeley for a PhD in biology. My admissions essay stated that I was skeptical that DNA contains a program for embryo development. Turned out that several professors at Berkeley agreed, and this no doubt helped me get in.
Speaker 3 00:05:15 So I was skeptical of the mutation selection mechanism for revolution, but I took for granted that all living things are related through common dissent. Once I saw the evidence though, especially in embryology my specialty, I began to doubt the doctrine of common dissent while I was at Berkeley. I also read a book published in 1991 by law Professor Phillip Johnson Darwin on trial, which had a profound effect on me. I became skeptical of every aspect of evolutionary theory. So I entered Berkeley skeptical of the mechanism, but not the pattern, and I left Berkeley skeptical of the whole thing. After I received my PhD in biology from Berkeley, I continued doing post-doctoral research there and published some articles critical of some of the evidence used by textbooks to promote evolution, including drawings of vertebrate embryos and photos of peppered moss resting on tree trunks. In fact, in this series of lectures, I will go into more details of many of the arguments and evidence for and against evolution. On some topics, I'll give two lectures. The first will be a summary of the arguments and evidence for evolution, and the second will focus more on arguments and evidence against it. But first, in my next lecture, I'd like to clarify what the word evolution means
Speaker 2 00:06:31 In his second lecture. Dr. Wells explores various ways the word evolution is used and abused.
Speaker 3 00:06:39 What is evolution? Well, it can mean a lot of things. In its most general sense, it's just change over time. It can mean the history of the cosmos, it can mean the development of technology In all of these senses, evolution is utterly uncontroversial. At least I don't know anyone who thinks that things never change. Another meaning for evolution in biology is that living things were once different from what we see around us. Now, the past is different from the present. This is called the change in the biosphere, the makeup of the living things on our planet, and there is a history to life. Nobody denies it that I know. Something else. Evolution can mean in biology is minor changes within existing species. We can actually see this in our own families. We're different from our parents, they're different from their parents. We're different from our brothers and sisters and farmers have been seeing this for centuries in domestic breeding with plants and animals.
Speaker 3 00:07:37 So minor changes with an existing species, again, are uncontroversial. Darwin took things a step further though for him. The minor changes we see in existing species if given enough time, lead to new species, organs, and body plants. Along the way, beneficial variations are preserved and harmful variations are eliminated by natural selection or survival of the fittest. For Darwin, there was no design in this process. He once wrote, there seems to be no more design and the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection than in the course which the wind blows. So he called his book The Origin of Species One Long Argument, and the argument took this form. He would point to something in the biosphere and argue that it was inexplicable on the theory of creation, but made sense from the point of view of his theory of dissent with modification, starting with the fourth edition of the Origin of Species.
Speaker 3 00:08:42 Darwin also argued that the idea that living things were created according to a plan is quote, not a scientific explanation unquote. Now, Darwin's book had no evidence for natural selection. He had none at the time. All he could offer was, as he put it, one or two imaginary illustrations. Furthermore, despite the title of his book, he never sought the origin of species. According to historian Neil Gillespie writing about 40 years ago, it has sometimes said that Darwin converted the scientific world to evolution by showing them the process by which it had occurred. Yet it was actually more Darwin's insistence on totally natural explanations than on natural selection that won their adherence, which is one reason why we hear so little nowadays about Darwin's contemporary Alfred Russell Wallace, who also proposed a theory of natural selection. In fact, Wallace had more evidence for his theory than Darwin had for his, and the two men or the two theories were presented on the same day in 1858.
Speaker 3 00:09:49 Yet we almost never hear of Wallace who believed that natural selection could not account for our brain, our organs of speech, our hand, or the external form of human beings. For Wallace, there had to be an overruling intelligence involved. Well, this idea horrified Darwin because the point of his book was to show that there was no intelligence involved. Historian Michael Flannery has written Darwin's book was a framework that served not only to bolster a materialistic metaphysic, but in effect proposed to become its operative manifesto. Darwinian evolution, according to flannery, far from being evidence-based science is one long argument in favor of materialistic philosophy. So Darwin's theory relied less on evidence than on a theological argument. That is an argument against creation by design and a philosophical argument That is a definition of science that excluded design, a definition that changed what people had thought of science before.
Speaker 3 00:10:53 So controversies over evolution, ever since Darwin have always involved theology and philosophy. It was there from the very beginning. In the 1930s, a follower of Darwin's Theodosius dubs evolutionary biologist wrote something very interesting. He distinguished between what he called microevolution and macro evolution, and here's what he wrote. There is no way toward an understanding of the mechanisms of macro evolutionary changes other than through a full comprehension of micro evolutionary processes that we can observe within our own lifetimes. Now, microevolution refers to minor changes within existing species. Macro evolution for dsky meant the origin of new species, organs, and body plans. So dusky concluded For this reason, we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro and micro-evolution and proceeding on this assumption to push our investigations as far ahead as this working hypothesis will permit.
Speaker 3 00:12:04 Now, although Darwin didn't use the words, do Johns ski used, the essence of Darwin's theory is essentially do Joni's extrapolation. That is microevolution given long enough will lead to macro evolution. Note that Dar did not write a book titled How Existing Species Change Over Time. If he had, probably no one would've noticed. Instead, he wrote a book titled The Origin of Species. Now, today, the scientific consensus is to lump microevolution and macroevolution together. Eugenie Scott, former director of the Pro Evolution National Center for Science Education, wrote years ago that she would introduce college students to evolution as an issue of the history of the planet, as the way we try to understand change through time. The present is different from the past. Evolution happened. There's no debate within science as to whether it happened and so on. Well, she's right about that, but that's referring of course to Microevolution.
Speaker 3 00:13:10 But then Scott advocated confusing students by using the same term to cover macroevolution. She explained it only after she got the students nodding in ascent to her change over time definition, would she bring in Darwin's big idea of unguided macroevolution? But that she wrote is what we want students to know about organic evolution. The scientific consensus now is not just to confuse microevolution and macroevolution, but also to present evolution as though it were a fact. I will argue throughout these lectures that that's not true. But to save time and avoid long-winded in my lectures, I will use the word evolution to mean what the consensus means. That is unguided macroevolution, unless I specify otherwise.
Speaker 2 00:14:08 In the same way that the term evolution can mean different things, so too can the term science. And as with evolution, you have to keep a weather eye out for a bait and switch. Jonathan Wells explains this for us in his third lecture, the final short lecture in unit one of his new Discovery U online course.
Speaker 3 00:14:30 What is science? The word comes from the Latin word sci, which means simply knowledge. So in it's broadest sense, science is knowledge. In the modern world, though, it has taken on some more specific meanings. For many people, science means technology. When they hear the word science, they think of that which has brought us cell phones and cars and televisions and computers and surgical techniques and dental techniques and so on, all of which have enriched our lives and contribute to our civilization. For some people, science means something somewhat different. It means the scientific establishment, the group of people who are trained and employed to do research in various areas. They work at universities, research centers, uh, maybe private companies, but that is science for some people. The scientific establishment, well, the majority opinion of the scientific establishment of, of the people in the establishment is called the scientific consensus.
Speaker 3 00:15:36 It's sometimes expressed as scientists agree, even though often some don't. It's sometimes expressed as science says. Well, the consensus throughout history has turned out to be quite unreliable at times in 1500, the scientific consensus was that the sun goes around the earth In 1750, the scientific consensus was that some simple creatures, supposedly simple like maggots and mice spontaneously generate in rotting garbage. Nobody believes that anymore. In 1900, as I pointed out in my first lecture, the scientific consensus was that the continents have always been where they are now. They have not drifted. So in these cases and many others, the scientific consensus turned out to be false. Another way to look at scientists, to look at what scientists do according to blindness. Pauling who won two Nobel prizes, science is the search for truth. And scientists search for truth by testing hypotheses, proposing hypotheses, first of all, and then testing them with observations and experiments.
Speaker 3 00:16:43 That is with evidence. Actually, we all do this at some level. If you think about it in your daily life, you have certain ideas and you compare them with your observations, uh, and experience, and you decide whether the ideas are true or false. So in this broad sense, we're all scientists. Technology comes from this. Someone proposes an idea and then test it against the evidence. If it works, if it fits the evidence, then it becomes successful technology. If it doesn't work, it's discarded. Well, there's another definition of science of how scientists do science, and that is science is the search for natural explanations. This is, uh, often justified by something called methodological naturalism. When we do experiments, we can only do them on material objects and the forces among them. And so this, this methodology, this experimental method, sort of limits us to explaining things naturally.
Speaker 3 00:17:41 But there's something else often at work here. It's an assumption that many scientists have, many people have. If we search long enough for natural explanations, we will eventually find them. That is we can actually explain everything naturalistically or materialistically. Well, this is no longer method. This is philosophy. In fact, it's materialistic philosophy matter, and the forces among material objects are the only realities. Mine free will spirit God, intelligent design. These are only illusions in materialistic philosophy. Well, from the 19, late 1990s through the mid two thousands, there was a big controversy in Kansas over what standards the state should use for high school students and elementary school students in science. And there was a, in particular, a big controversy over how the standards should define science. At the time, most states defined science in terms of observations and experiments. There was a group in Kansas that wanted to change the Kansas science definition to mean the search for natural explanations.
Speaker 3 00:18:47 At the time a Kansas biology professor wrote, even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. Well, this is materialistic science, not empirical science. The natural explanation takes priority over the evidence. This is quite different from evidence-based science. Now, when I was at Princeton in the, uh, early sixties, I read a book that came out at the time by philosopher Thomas Coon titled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In the book, Kun pointed out that most science, most periods in science are characterized by what he called normal science. Scientists are busy solving problems within an existing conceptual framework, but then every now and then enough data accumulate to challenge the existing framework. And what we have then is a scientific revolution. And Koon pointed out that in the course of a scientific revolution, the the actual definition of science may change. It changed at the time of Newton, as I've pointed out. It also changed in the time of Darwin. Darwin redefined science to exclude design. Well, if data accumulate to show that the Darwinian framework is false, we may experience another scientific revolution and we may find that the definition of science changes once again, perhaps back to empirical science rather than materialistic science.
Speaker 2 00:20:26 You've been listening to introductory lectures by Jonathan Wells, with which he opens his new Discovery u online course investigating evidence for and against evolution. You can find the rest of this course and others by visiting discovery u.org, discovery u.org. Check it out, and of course, there's always more for you right here at ID The Future. I'm Tom Gilson. Thank you for listening.
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