it's called "natural selection" for a reason

evolutionary biologist jerry coyne @ whyevolutionistrue:

one reader wanted to know if i was going ask [dr. eugenie scott, former head of the national center for science education (NCSE) and known as "genie" to everyone] about theistic evolution — the view that evolution happened, but was somehow guided by god. they wanted to know if she considered that "real" evolution.

i responded on this site that i hardly wanted to get into a kerfuffle about the issue with genie in public. after all, i know her position on it (theistic evolution is okay), she knows mine, and i didn't want to do battle in public, particularly when she was giving a keynote talk.

but this website is a different matter.

in fact, the question of theistic evolution did come up in genie's Q&A, when one of the audience asked genie whether she considered theistic evolution "science."

the question clearly discomfited her a bit, but i knew how she would answer. she said, correctly, that there are a huge variety of positions falling under "theistic evolution," ranging from pure deism (god created the universe, and then evolution proceeded purely naturalistically) to other forms in which god intervened to a greater or lesser extent. as we know, those interventions range from subtle ones (god tweaked certain mutations making it more likely that they would be more likely to be adaptive, or more likely to create human features), to less subtle (god inserted a soul in the human lineage) to pretty drastic interventions (god let some species evolve naturally, but brought others into existence ex nihilo).

theistic evolution is in fact the most widely accepted form of evolution in america, at least for the evolution of our species. a gallup poll in 2012 showed that 46% of americans thought god created humans ex nihilo within the last 10,000 years, 32% thought that humans evolved, but with the help of god, and only 15% thought that humans evolved without any intervention by god. in other words, roughly one in seven american accepts evolution in the same way scientists do. for every american who accepts naturalistic evolution, more than two accept god-guided evolution. (i think accepting that "god guided the process" rules out pure deism.)

genie said something like this (i didn't write down her words), "what we care about is getting the science accepted, and yes, all of these positions are compatible with science, so i have no problem considering them as science." in other words, she'd be okay if she or the NCSE could simply make religious people accept theistic evolution. for, in her view, they'd be accepting a scientific view rather than a religious one. and then they might be our allies in keeping straight creationism out of public schools.

and here i think genie is wrong — dead wrong.

theistic evolution is neither science nor scientific. while it may help some religious people oppose the teaching of strict creationism in schools (the real goal of the NCSE's accommodationism), it inculcates people with the idea that god and his supernatural acts can work hand-in-hand with physical laws to bring about a process that scientists think is purely naturalistic.

further, we have evidence against certain types of theistic evolution. there doesn't appear to be any telelogical forces driving evolution in a certain direction; there is no evidence that mutations are more likely to be useful when the environment changes, so that mutations for longer fur in mammals would occur more frequently when the climate becomes colder (this is what scientists mean when we say that "mutations are random", although "indifferent" is a better word than "random"); and we don't see violations of darwinian natural selection, that is, we don't see natural selection creating "irreducible complexity," as intelligent-design advocates maintain.

as far as we can see, then, evolution, like all things that occur in nature, is purely naturalistic; it does not require or give evidence for the intervention of a god. as laplace famously said, "we don't need that hypothesis." theistic evolution says otherwise. and that's unscientific. there is, after all, a reason that darwin called his best idea natural selection, not "divinely-aided selection."

think about it. saying that theistic evolution is scientific is equivalent to saying that yes, chemical bonds form between sodium and chloride ions, but those bonds are formed with the help of god. why not have theistic chemistry? or that the universe is expanding, but god is helping it expand. why not have theistic cosmology?

those hypotheses are unscientific because they not only posit an intervention that isn't observed, but invoke a superfluous and supernatural intervention to explain a process that can be explained adequately using pure naturalism. god is a useless "add-on" here, and that's not the way science works. science works best when we make theories that assume no more than we need to. while it's logically possible for god to be guiding particles and directing evolution, we have no evidence that this is true. theistic evolution is not required by science; it is, as we must admit, simply something tacked on to make religious people feel better about a process that, if purely naturalistic, is taken as a direct attack on their worldview.

further, theistic evolution is, to use genie's own term, a "science stopper." if you say that god is making mutations, or expanding the universe, then we need investigate no further. what we don't understand can simply be fobbed off on the will of a divine being. there's need to look for that elusive naturalistic explanation.

the tactic of considering theistic evolution as "scientific" is a purely political one. the NCSE and others (viz., the american association for the advancement of science and the national academy of sciences), feel that to get evolution accepted and taught in schools, we need religious allies. and to get those allies, we have to accept their view that evolution was guided by god, even though we don't believe it ourselves.

science makes progress only when it doesn't evoke a god. even the NCSE accepts that "methodological naturalism" — the rejection of divine hypotheses — is the way that science has progressed. so why reject god when you're doing science, but then admit on the sly that he might be in there working away subtly and, perhaps, undetectably? that is a political view, not a scientific one, and it dilutes and pollutes the scientific enterprise. it also gives the public the false idea that theistic evolution is somehow okay with scientists.

it isn't. no evolutionary biologist puts in her scientific papers a note to the effect that god might be involved in the process she's studying. anyone doing that would be laughed out of the field. so if scientists reject theistic evolution in their own work, why accept it when the public believes it? it's pure hypocrisy to do so, and a blatant attempt to coddle believers.

i'd rather stand up for the purity and naturalism of science than accept forms of science that invoke god. yes, i'll be glad to work with religious people to help expel creationism from schools — and theistic evolution is a form of creationism!. what i won't do is give my imprimatur to a form of evolution that includes the supernatural. until we have some evidence for the supernatural in science — and we certainly don't at this point — let's not grant it simply to gain allies. that is a false alliance that, in the end, creates a public misunderstanding of science.

it is ironic that the national center for science education is willing to include theistic evolution as "scientific." it is wrong, it is hypocritical, and it's a cynical political tactic unbecoming to scientists. the NCSE has done terrific work in keeping creationism out of schools. but in saying that theistic evolution is "scientific," as genie did on sunday, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. what is science profited if we help evolution get accepted more widely, but in so doing lose our own scientific soul?

love story

as an ice age crept upon them thousands of years ago, neanderthals and modern human ancestors expanded their territory ranges across asia and europe to adapt to the changing environment. in the process, they encountered each other.

although many anthropologists believe that modern humans ancestors "wiped out" neanderthals, it's more likely that neanderthals were integrated into the human gene pool thousands of years ago during the upper pleistocene era as cultural and climatic forces brought the two groups together, said arizona state university professor c. michael barton of the center for social dynamics and complexity and school of human evolution and social change.

(art by gary larson)

invitation declined

more fun stuff via p.z. myers @ pharyngula:

dear professor gotelli, i saw your op-ed in the burlington free press and appreciated your support of free speech at UVM. in light of that, i wonder if you would be open to finding a way to provide a campus forum for a debate about evolutionary science and intelligent design. the discovery institute, where i work, has a local sponsor in burlington who is enthusiastic to find a way to make this happen. but we need a partner on campus. if not the biology department, then perhaps you can suggest an alternative. ben stein may not be the best person to single-handedly represent the ID side. as you're aware, he's known mainly as an entertainer. a more appropriate alternative or addition might be our senior fellows david berlinski or stephen meyer, respectively a mathematician and a philosopher of science. i'll copy links to their bios below. wherever one comes down in the darwin debate, i think we can all agree that it is healthy for students to be exposed to different views — in precisely the spirit of inviting controversial speakers to campus, as you write in your op-ed. i'm hoping that you would be willing to give a critique of ID at such an event, and participate in the debate in whatever role you feel comfortable with. a good scientific backdrop to the discussion might be dr. meyer's book that comes out in june from harpercollins, "signature in the cell: DNA and the evidence for intelligent design." on the other hand, dr. belinski may be a good choice since he is a critic of both ID and darwinian theory. would it be possible for us to talk more about this by phone sometime soon? with best wishes, david klinghoffer discovery institute

dear dr. klinghoffer: thank you for this interesting and courteous invitation to set up a debate about evolution and creationism (which includes its more recent relabeling as "intelligent design") with a speaker from the discovery institute. your invitation is quite surprising, given the sneering coverage of my recent newspaper editorial that you yourself posted on the discovery institute's website: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/ however, this kind of two-faced dishonesty is what the scientific community has come to expect from the creationists. academic debate on controversial topics is fine, but those topics need to have a basis in reality. i would not invite a creationist to a debate on campus for the same reason that i would not invite an alchemist, a flat-earther, an astrologer, a psychic, or a holocaust revisionist. these ideas have no scientific support, and that is why they have all been discarded by credible scholars. creationism is in the same category. instead of spending time on public debates, why aren't members of your institute publishing their ideas in prominent peer-reviewed journals such as science, nature, or the proceedings of the national academy of sciences? if you want to be taken seriously by scientists and scholars, this is where you need to publish. academic publishing is an intellectual free market, where ideas that have credible empirical support are carefully and thoroughly explored. nothing could possibly be more exciting and electrifying to biology than scientific disproof of evolutionary theory or scientific proof of the existence of a god. that would be nobel prize winning work, and it would be eagerly published by any of the prominent mainstream journals. "conspiracy" is the predictable response by ben stein and the frustrated creationists. but conspiracy theories are a joke, because science places a high premium on intellectual honesty and on new empirical studies that overturn previously established principles. creationism doesn't live up to these standards, so its proponents are relegated to the sidelines, publishing in books, blogs, websites, and obscure journals that don't maintain scientific standards. finally, isn't it sort of pathetic that your large, well-funded institute must scrape around, panhandling for a seminar invitation at a little university in northern new england? practicing scientists receive frequent invitations to speak in science departments around the world, often on controversial and novel topics. if creationists actually published some legitimate science, they would receive such invitations as well. so, i hope you understand why i am declining your offer. i will wait patiently to read about the work of creationists in the pages of nature and science. but until it appears there, it isn't science and doesn't merit an invitation. in closing, i do want to thank you sincerely for this invitation and for your posting on the discovery institute website. as an evolutionary biologist, i can't tell you what a badge of honor this is. my colleagues will be envious. sincerely yours, nick gotelli p.s. i hope you will forgive me if i do not respond to any further e-mails from you or from the discovery institute. this has been entertaining, but it interferes with my research and teaching.

update: klinghoffer responds:

what is hypocrisy, after all? i've been corresponding with nicolas gotelli, a university of vermont biologist. when i received his response to my initial email, i thought it was so ridiculous and hypocritical that i said to myself, wouldn't it be amusing to publish this on ENV? then i reflected disappointedly, no, it's a private correspondence, that would be unethical! i can't do it without his permission and, since he'd have to be pretty thoughtless to allow someone to reprint his hysterically bristling letter, it's not worth asking. luckily, professor gotelli has solved my problem for me. he promptly and without seeking permission sent our emails off to pz myers, who immediately published them on pharyngula. you can read the correspondence there. thank you, gentlemen. gotelli is the fellow who wrote an op-ed in the burlington free press expressing the view that it was only proper that uvm should cancel ben stein as graduation speaker because the popular entertainer is also a "notorious advocate of intelligent design" who maintains that darwinian ideas had deadly consequences in the form of nazi racist ideology (only too true). gotelli asserted it was appropriate to invite "controversial" speakers to campus, since "one of the best ways to refute intellectually bankrupt ideas is to expose them to the light of day." but a commencement speaker is someone special, gotelli went on, someone chosen for his peer-reviewed scholarship. someone, it turns out, like the widely published scholar howard dean, to whom UVM turned next and who will deliver the commencement address. what, as one online reader of gotelli's op-ed plaintively asked, "was daffy duck unavailable?" prompted by a friend in vermont who wanted to see stein speak at UVM, i wrote to gotelli on the assumption that just possibly he was sincere in his protestations about being for free speech. perhaps he would agree to advise me on finding a forum for a debate about darwinism on the UVM campus, on some occasion other than commencement. i suggested that rather than ben stein, it might be illuminating to put up a scientific darwin critic like stephen meyer or david berlinski against a darwinian advocate like, oh, nick gotelli. it was a pipe dream of mine. these guys always run from debates as fast as they can manage, hiding and shivering behind the excuse of not wanting to grant public recognition to doubts about darwin — doubts shared, of course, by most americans. sure enough, gotelli wrote back, all in a huff. first, he was offended by a post on ENV that mildly guffawed at his op-ed and the choice of dean as commencement speaker — thinking i had written the post, which actually i didn't. gotelli had misunderstood the author identification. he called the post "sneering" — which it hardly was — and decried my "two-faced dishonesty" in now writing to him in a courteous tone. i always try to write to and about people in a courteous tone. not so, gotelli — or pz myers, or most anyone i can think of in the online darwinist community, where venom and vulgarity are the norm. which is interesting in itself. i guess ideas have consequences after all. after throwing around the scare word "creationism" a number of times and mixing it up with other insults and untruths, gotelli closes by, first, withdrawing his earlier suggestion that stein (or anyone associated with ID) would make an appropriate "controversial" campus speaker, and then childishly warning that if i should try to reply to him, he would not answer me or anyone else from the discovery institute. in other words, "nah nah nah, boo boo!" as my kids would put it. hypocrisy may be the wrong word for gotelli's about-face on free speech. anyone who fails, out of weakness or temptation, to live up to his own openly professed ideals is a hypocrite. that would include most human beings. the normal feeling that goes with this is embarrassment. a hypocrite wouldn't seek to publicize his hypocrisy. maybe, then, the right designation for someone like gotelli is a cynic. that's someone who treats ideas as chess pieces. when it suits your purposes, you advance an idea — like "free speech." when it doesn't suit your purpose, the same idea becomes expendable, a useless pawn. but no, that's not quite it either. a cynic is typically smart enough to try to keep his cynicism a secret. that's part of his game strategy. a cynic wouldn't forward his correspondence to a buddy with a popular website, so that everyone could see how little trouble he takes to consider the words he writes. the person who would do that isn't a hypocrite or a cynic. he's a fool.

ooh ... pretty!

evolution chart (click for full size):

(hat tip to p.z. myers @ pharyngula)

quote of the day

on creationism, intelligent design and the wedge strategy, from daily kos:

fortunately creationists don't realize that their wedge strategy is a two-edged sword. once they decided to adopt intelligent design and don a cloak of empiricism, attempting to wage war in the same evidentiary arena as reputable career scientists required their ceding to naturalism larger and larger swaths of territory — such as the acknowledgment "micro-evolution" — if they hope to be taken seriously on the battleground of ideas. the only question left is how much of their theology they're willing to give up in order to win the standing and prestige from the scientific community they so desperately crave. they may not realize it now, or perhaps are still merely too stubborn to admit it, even to themselves, but their own vanity is methodically boxing them into irrelevance.