Brin Classics: Other Intelligent Designs: alternatives to Darwin that merit "equal time"

Part of a series of re-issues of my most-popular online postings, which first appeared as a featured article in SKEPTIC Magazine.  This one about the deep illogic underlying the claims by the fundamentalist community that they "just want students to be exposed to all sides and make up their own minds."

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THERE IS RICH IRONY in how the present battle over Creationism v. Darwinism has taken shape, and especially how this round differs from previous episodes. A clue to both the recent success — and the inevitable collapse — of “Intelligent Design” can be found in its name, and in the new tactics that are being used to support its incorporation into school curricula. In what must be taken as sincere flattery, these tactics appear to acknowledge just how deeply the inner lessons of science have pervaded modern culture.

Intelligent Design (ID) pays tribute to its rival, by demanding to be recognized as a direct and “scientific” competitor with the Theory of Evolution. Unlike the Creationists of 20 years ago, proponents of ID no longer refer to biblical passages. Instead, they invoke skepticism and cite alleged faulty evidence as reasons to teach students alternatives to evolution.

True, they produce little or no evidence to support their own position. ID promoters barely try to undermine evolution as a vast and sophisticated model of the world, supported by millions of tested and interlocking facts. At the level that they are fighting, none of that matters. Their target is millions of onlookers and voters, for whom the battle is as emotional and symbolic as it ever was.

What has changed is the armory of symbols and ideas being used. Proponents of Intelligent Design now appeal to notions that are far more a part of the lexicon of science than religion, notably openness to criticism, fair play, and respect for the contingent nature of truth.

These concepts proved successful in helping our civilization to thrive, not only in science, but markets, democracy and a myriad other modern processes. Indeed, they have been incorporated into the moral foundations held by average citizens, of all parties and creeds. Hence, the New Creationists have adapted and learned to base their arguments upon these same principles. One might paraphrase the new position, that has been expressed by many, as follows:

What do evolutionists have to fear? Are they so worried about competition and criticism that they must censor what bright students are allowed to hear? Let all sides present their evidence and students will decide for themselves!

One has to appreciate not only irony, but an implied tribute to the scientific enlightenment, when we realize that openness to criticism, fair play, and respect for the contingent nature of truth are now the main justifications set forward by those who still do not fully accept science. Some of those promoting a fundamentalist- religious agenda now appeal to principles they once fiercely resisted. (In fairness, some religions helped to promote these concepts.) Perhaps they find it a tactically useful maneuver.

It’s an impressive one. And it has allowed them to steal a march. While scientists and their supporters try to fight back with judicious reasoning and mountains of evidence, a certain fraction of the population perceives only smug professors, battling only to protect their turf — authority figures trying to squelch brave underdogs before they can compete. Image matters. And this self-portrayal — as champions of open debate, standing up to stodgy authorities — has worked well for the proponents of Intelligent Design (ID). For now.

Yet, I believe they have made a mistake. By basing their offensive on core notions of fair play and completeness, ID promoters have employed a clever short-term tactic, but have incurred a long-term strategic liability. Because, their grand conceptual error is in believing that their incantation of Intelligent Design is the only alternative to Darwinian evolution.

But they have laid themselves open to a jiu jitsu move of startling effectiveness.  Simply by responding "all right, then let's have students ALSO discuss alternatives other than Christian creationism If students deserve to weigh ID against natural selection, then why not also expose them to…

1. Guided Evolution

This is the deist compromise most commonly held by thousands — possibly millions — of very modern people, including many working scientists who want to reconcile science and faith. Yes, the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and our earliest ancestors emerged from a stew of amino acids that also led to crabs, monkeys and slime molds who are all distant relatives. Still, a creative force may have been behind the Big Bang, and especially the selection of some finely tuned physical constants, whose narrow balance appears to make the evolution of life possible, maybe even inevitable. Likewise, such a force may have given frequent or occasional nudges of subtle guidance to evolution, all along, as part of a Divine Plan.

There is one advantage — and drawback — to this notion (depending on your perspective): it is compatible with everything we see around us — all the evidence we’ve accumulated — and it is utterly impossible to prove or disprove. Not only does this let many scientists continue both to pray and do research, but it has allowed the Catholic Church and many other religious organizations to accept (at long last) evolution as fact, with relatively good grace.

To be clear, atheists still have trouble with this alternative.  But if it were included among the "alternatives" offered to young people in school, it would quickly prove far more vexing for those pushing creationism and ID! Biblical literalists would lose far more ground to this competitor than atheism would.

 And let there be no mistake.  If they succeed in dilluting biolgy curricula with "alternatives" to darwinian evolution, this one will be there, whether they like it or not.  We'll make sure it is! Also...

2. Intelligent Design of Intelligent Designers (IDOID)

Most Judeo-Christian sects dislike speculating about possible origins of the Creator. But not all avoid the topic. Mormons, for example, hold that the God of this universe — who created humanity (or else guided our evolution) — was once Himself a mortal being who was created by a previous God in a prior universe or context.

One can imagine someone applying the very same logic that Intelligent Design promoters have used.

There is no way that such a fantastic entity as God could have simply erupted out of nothing. Such order and magnificence could not possibly have self-organized out of chaos. Only intelligence can truly create order, especially order of such a supreme nature.

Oh, certainly there are theological arguments that have been around since Augustine to try and quell such thoughts, arguing in favor of ex nihilio or timeless pre-existence, or threatening punishment for even asking the question. But that’s the point! Any effort to raise these rebuttals will:

1. make this a matter of theology (something the ID people have strenuously avoided).
2. smack as an attempt to quash other ideas, flying against the very same principles of fair play and completeness that ID proponents have used to prop up this whole effort.

IDOID will have to be let in - and Mormons will help push it - or the whole program must collapse under howling derision and accusations of hypocrisy.

3. Evolution of Intelligent Designers

Yes, you read me right. Recent advances in cosmology have led some of the world’s leading cosmologists, such as Syracuse University’s Lee Smolin, to suggest that each time a large black hole forms (and our universe contains many) it serves as an “egg” for the creation of an entirely new “baby universe” that detaches from ours completely, beginning an independent existence in some non-causally connected region of false vacuum. Out of this collapsing black hole arises a new cosmos, perhaps with its own subsequent Big Bang and expansion, including the formation of stars, planets, etc. Smolin further posits that our own universe may have come about that way, and so did its “parent” cosmos, and so on, backward through countless cycles of hyper-time.

Moreover, in a leap of highly original logic, Smolin went on to persuasively argue that each new universe might be slightly better adapted than its ancestor. Adapted for what? Why, to create more black holes — the eggs — needed for reproducing more universes.

Up to this point we have a more sophisticated and vastly larger-scale version of what Richard Dawkins called the evolution of evolvability. But Lee Smolin takes it farther still, contending that, zillions of cycles of increasingly sophisticated universes would lead to some that inherit just the right physical constants and boundary conditions.

Conditions that enable life to form. And then intelligence … and then…

Well, now it’s our turn to take things even farther than Smolin did. Any advocate of completeness would have to extend this evolutionary process beyond achieving mere sapience like ours, all the way to producing intelligence so potent that it can then start performing acts of creation on its own, manipulating and using black holes to fashion universes to specific design.

In other words, there might be an intelligent designer of this world … who nevertheless came into being as a result of evolution.

Sound a little newfangled and contrived? So do all innovative ideas! And yet, no one can deny that it covers a legitimate portion of idea space. And since “weighing the evidence” is to be left to students, well, shouldn’t they be exposed to this idea too? Again, the principles now used by proponents of ID — fair play and completeness — may turn around and bite them.  Indeed, I promise that if they get their alternative to Darwin into schools, this one will also be there.  We'll make sure of it.

Which brings us to some of the classics.

4. Cycles of Creation

Perhaps the whole thing does not have a clear-cut beginning or end, but rolls along like a wheel? That certainly would allow enough macro-time for everything and anything to happen. Interestingly, the cyclical notion opens up infinite time for both evolution and intelligent designers … though not of any kind that will please ID promoters. Shall Hindu gurus and Mayan priest kings step up and demand equal time for their theories of creation cycles? How can you stop them, once the principle is established that every hypothesis deserves equal treatment in the schools, allowing students to hear and weigh any notion that claims to explain the world?  They can be presented in "non-religious terms" a gimmick that ID activists pioneered, showing the way.

Be careful what you wish for.

5. Panspermia

This one is venerable and quite old within the scientific community, which posits that life on Earth may have been seeded from elsewhere in the cosmos. Panspermia was trotted out for the “Scopes II” trial in the 1980s, when Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinge were among the few first-rank scientists to openly disbelieve the standard Origins model — the one that posits life appeared independently out of nonliving chemicals in Earth’s early oceans. Their calculations (since then refuted) suggested that it would take hundreds of oceans and many times the age of the Earth for random chemistry to achieve a workable, living cell.

Alas for the Creationists of that day, Hoyle and Wickramasinge did not turn out to be useful as friendly experts, because their alternative offered no comfort to the biblical Genesis story. They pointed out that our galaxy probably contains a whole lot more than a few hundred Earth oceans. Multiplying the age of the Milky Way times many billions of possible planets — and comets too — they readily conceded that random chance could make successful cells, eventually, on one world or another. (Or, possibly, in the liquid interiors of trillions of newborn comets. See Heart of the Comet!) All it would take then are asteroid impacts ejecting hardy cells into the void for life to then spread gradually throughout the cosmos. Perhaps it might even be done deliberately, once a single lucky source world achieved intelligence through … well … evolution. (Needless to say, Creationists found Hoyle and Wickramasinge big disappointments.)

So far, we have amassed quite a list of legitimate competitors … that is, if Intelligent Design is one. Now a cautionary pause. Some alternative theories that I have left out include satirical pseudo-religions, like one recent internet fad attributing creation to something called the “Flying Spaghetti Monster.” These humorous jibes have a place, but their blows do not land on-target. They miss the twin pillars of completeness and fair play, upon which promoters of Intelligent Design have based their attack against secular-modernist science. By erasing all theological details, ID activists hoped to eliminate any vulnerabilities arising from those details. Indeed, since the Spaghetti Monster is purported to be an Intelligent Designer, they can even chuckle and welcome it into the fold, knowing that it will win no real converts.

Not so for the other items listed here. Each of these concepts — adding to idea-space completeness and deserving fair play — implies a dangerous competitor for Intelligent Design, a competitor that may seduce at least a few students into its sphere of influence. This undermines the implicit goal of ID, which is to proselytize a fundamentalist/literalist interpretation of the Christian Bible.

There are other possibilities, and I am sure readers could continue adding to the list, long after I am done, such as…

• We’re living in a simulation…
• Non-omnipotent others meddled/uplifted us (Chariots of 'gods")
• We’ve been resurrected at the Omega Point…
• It’s all in your imagination … and so on.

I doubt that the promoters of Intelligent Design really want to see a day come when every biology teacher says: “Okay, you’ve heard from Darwin. Now we’ll spend a week on each of the following: intelligent design, guided evolution, intelligent design of intelligent designers, evolution of intelligent designers, the Hindu cycle of karma, the Mayan yuga cycle, panspermia, the Universe as a simulation…” and so on.

Each of these viewpoints can muster advocacy from philosophers and even some modern physicists, and can gather as much supporting evidence as ID. In any case they are all equally defensible as concepts. And only censoring bullies would prevent students from hearing them and exercising their sovereign right to decide for themselves, right?

Or, perhaps, here's an idea. After enduring weeks of this stuff, the brighter students might even start private sessions after school, to study a quaint science called … biology.

A day may come when the promoters of Intelligent Design wish they had left well enough alone.

(Article reprinted from Skeptic Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 2)

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David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

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Supporters of science must adapt, during the fight over "Intelligent Design"... Pt II

In our first installment, we discussed some of the fallacies that are all-too often committed by defenders of science, when they face challenges from outside the realm of accepted wisdom. These fallacies -- ably listed by O.S. Card -- are mostly versions of credential-centered laziness. One can acknowledge that scientists and humanists are... well... human, and thus are inherently tempted by all of the same kinds of abuses that tripped up other priesthoods and orthodoxies, even well meaning ones.

Science itself is well-tuned to minimize those abuses. It has by far the best track record for self correction and openness to new ideas. Still, countless individual scientists and supporters often fail the maturity test when dealing with outside challenges, ranging from UFOs to Cold Fusion.

The reflex to resort to oversimplification, dismissal and name-calling can prove especially counterproductive when a large part of the public sees nonscientists as underdogs, rising up to challenge an entrenched system of authority, as is unfortunately the case during today’s controversy over so-called “Intelligent Design.” By reflexively disdaining such challenges as mere superstitious, defenders of the Enlightenment only fall into a trap set for them, by promoters and perpetrators of “culture war.”

Consider the deleterious effects of allowing this issue to be couched as a strict, either-or dichotomy. Even if a majority of the American people line up (as they appear to) on the side of genuine science education -- even if ID is kept out of every public school -- this could leave a very large minority of the public convinced that -- according to a simplistic choosing of “sides” -- they must, perforce, consider themselves to be anti-science.

Some may shrug and accept this as a price of victory. I say we cannot afford to leave so many fellow citizens -- and their children -- out there, in the cold.

This is not an exaggerated or unrealistic fear. It is, in fact, exactly what’s happened in the political battlefield, within the United States. Extremes of both left and right have benefitted by a polarization of camps in which the labels “conservative” and “liberal” stand for a strict litany of set-piece positions. Specified dogmas that must accompany each other, like arrows in a quiver. Even if these sides swap positions of power -- if, say, the Democrats win the next election by a landslide -- the real losers will be citizens who see complexity and nuance. Those willing to use tools like mediation and negotiated compromise.

This general problem of radicalizion is well-illustrated by the ID debate, wherein the forces who are supposedly defending the Enlightenment appear determined to cede the right wing’s most effective and damaging assertion -- that science is a system of truth interpreted by a hierarchy of experts. In other words, a tower of dogma, little different than a church. One that seems rather bossy, even.

Overall, I appear to be saying much the same thing that Orson Scott Card did, in his article. And yet, I do not conclude -- as he appears to do -- that this is all simply a matter of chilling out. Like Card, I do not believe that we have to choose sides between faith and science, so long as the fundamental integrity of science is preserved. But others are pushing exactly this dichotomy between two sides that are Pro-God and Anti-God. And if we let them pose these as the only possible positions, then we all lose.

In order to wage this fight successfully, the first mistake to avoid is letting yourself (science) be portrayed as a strawman (a stodgy priesthood, defending an orthodox and flawed dogma).

The second grievous error would be not to study the opposition and understand their capabilities. Their strengths. In the case at hand, this mistake manifests in a reflex assumption that Intelligent Design is the same thing as an older foe -- Creation Science.

There are many overlaps between these two movements. But also enough differences to merit some attention and study.

For one thing, ID assiduously avoids any reference to the Bible, or, indeed, any specific religion at all. This could be viewed as a clever tactic, in order to sneak past the bulwarks that have been erected between church and state. Indeed, many supporters and opponents of ID sincerely believe it is a wedge through which might squeeze the whole CS megillah. A means for later inserting a specific, reactionary church doctrine into state-supported schools. This suspicion is borne-out by documents published openly by the most prominent group pushing ID, the Discovery Institute, whose “Wedge Document”  is quite open and blatant about motives and long-term goals.

Still, there is another way of viewing this transformation of Creation Science into a new entity -- Intelligent Design. It could also be seen as a step in... well... evolution. As a clear sign of the ongoing victory of science over superstition!

One can see this plainly by looking not at the similarities between CS and ID, but at the differences. Above all, in the divergent attitudes that ID and CS express, when it comes to the subject of TIME.

“Creation Science” earned ridicule for the way adherents fought to ignore the overwhelming sweep of evidence showing that our Earth is over four billion years old. A position that became increasingly absurd -- even inane -- as more people became aware of the marvelous methodologies of science. You can pick up any rock -- digging samples out of mountains, seabeds or mines, anywhere on this planet, or even another planet -- take this sample into the lab, and use it as a crystal ball to sift through ages, catching glimpses of past volcanoes or impacts or sedimenting seas. The results will always fit spectacularly well into some portion of the vast, complex tale, with consistency to half a dozen orders of magnitude! Moreover, only a blithering ninny would still hold that all those fossils come from creatures drowned in Noah’s Flood! Isotopic dating techniques are just too good, too powerful, too overwhelmingly congruous and consistent, for any but the most ignorant people to clutch notions of a cramped, myopic creation, just 6,000 years old.

(Why supposedly reverent people would even want to do that -- casting a grotesque insult in the face of a Creator who has proved capable of doing so much more -- is a topic worth discussing another time.)

Alas, in their reflex to resist a foe, scientists have largely failed to notice a substantial victory -- or concession -- when it is offered to them on a silver platter. As it turns out, the top-most proponents of Intelligent Design claim to have no interest in disputing the scientific age of the universe, the planet, or even humanity. While they may evade the issue in order not to offend their most troglodytic supporters, many of the movement’s spokespersons -- when pressed -- will admit that they now accept -- as has the Catholic Church -- that time is no longer an issue. Either the “billions and billions” story is true... or else the Creator worked awfully hard to plant evidence that it’s true, in every smidgen of the Earth’s substance.

Moreover, to a large degree, top ID supporters no longer dispute the coalescing fossil record, which shows that evolution has, indeed occurred, resulting in a magnificent tapestry of species undergoing transformation and change, a story almost as relentlessly convincing as the tale of mineralogy and rocks.

Instead, they have zeroed in on one of the few large gaps, or unanswered questions, of evolutionary biology -- the problem of irreducible complexity in the most primitive wholly sufficient living cells. Lacking any research program of their own, or any large number of reputable scientists to call in support of an alternative, ID support groups have chosen to concentrate on hypotheses of “irreducible complexity” proposed by Michael Behe, a biochemist, and arguments by a mathematician, William Dembski, about “complex specified Information.” Tacitly (and perhaps temporarily) they seem willing to cede every other portion of the old Creation Science battlefield.

Now, many opponents of ID assume that these concessions are just tactical maneuvers, aimed at narrowing the wedge for penetration, so that the whole catechism of Creation Science can follow. And, for sure, some fundamentalists -- the aforementioned “troglodytes” -- must look at it that way. Indeed, according to the Discovery Institute’s own “Wedge Document,” this is the rationale used in seeking donations from genuinely anti-science forces in society. Certainly, the fact that the Institute funds no genuine research, concentrating almost solely on “culture war” battles, would seem to reinforce this point.

Still, it is wrong not to acknowledge genuine change on the other side, even when it is surficial and hypocritical. It is always a mistake not to study your adversaries, especially when they show signs of real adaptability. *

By dropping a whole slew of hopeless battles and useless baggage -- shifting their focus and concentrating on a few narrow points -- specifically, the problem of ex nihilio biochemical evolution of a fully complex ancestral cell -- the newly reconfigured ID movement showed some of the resiliency and adaptability that social conservatives have notably displayed in many other areas. (e.g. count how many politicians who once fought against Martin Luther King now display big portraits of him in their offices!)

An adaptability that liberals and scientists appear, sometimes, to sorely lack.

Indeed -- and alas -- many seem unable even to recognize the need.


* (Indeed, are the Enlightenment forces missing an opportunity to strike a powerful public relations coup? Suppose we were to seem forthcoming by explicitly congratulating the ID crowd for this suite of concessions. It might be possible to drive a wedge into their movement, for a change, and/or permanently lock the concessions in place! At minimum, it could force the Discovery Institute to backpedal and choose. Either they withdraw the concesions having to do with the vastness of time, in order to protect their base, or they must sacrifice their most hardcore supporters, in order to seem modern. This is the kind of "have you stopped beating your wife?" dilemma that is used by their side all the time. What poetic justice to turn it around, exposing hypocrisy at its source.)

Supporters of science must adapt, during the fight over "Intelligent Design"... Pt I

One of you wrote: “You once mentioned that Orson Scott Card should have a dog in the ID fight. Here's his dog. It appears to intersect with yours quite a bit, with, perhaps, some stuff you might consider a strawman or two.”

Hrmmm.. Card is a complex and interesting person. First an aside. He long ago began savaging me in public, I think perhpas because he’s irritated by the fact that we have fans in common. After many years of this, I began looking around for things to dislike about him too (I am only human), and found a few. (I have to look hard because I like to see the good in people, and Scott has plenty on that side of the ledger.)

What I have mostly criticized (and it is non-ad-hominem) is his apparent literary obsession with ubermenschen demigods, relentlessly returning to the trope of mutant superbeings who so-o-o-o-o regret having to impose their will on benighted/foolish humanity... for our own good, of course. And yet, Card’s are among the most interesting demigods around! Really angst-ridden and filled with painful doubts... that somehow never seem to prevent them from finally deciding to squish us, after all. Unlike Yoda, at least his midi-chlorian Ubers are willing to answer questions -- at prodigious length. I hope, if we ever are taken over by mutant Homo superiors, they will be OS Card characters, because at least they won’t enjoy it.

Enough about that lit-gossip. As for Card’s paper on ID, it is a superior piece of work, legitimately chastising the “either-or” dichotomy and authoritarian posturing that too many scientists have bought into.

Or, at least, the essay begins that way, before ultimately falling apart. To start with, he enumerates a number of responses that have been offered by Darwinists, in reaction to the community that promotes teaching Intelligent Design in public school science curricula. Here’s his list:

1. Intelligent Design is just Creation Science in a new suit (name-calling).

2. Don’t listen to these guys, they’re not real scientists (credentialism).

3. If you actually understood science as we do, you’d realize that these guys are wrong and we’re right; but you don’t, so you have to trust us (expertism).

4. They got some details of those complex systems wrong, so they must be wrong about everything (sniping).

5. The First Amendment requires the separation of church and state (politics).

6. We can’t possibly find a fossil record of every step along the way in evolution, but evolution has already been so well demonstrated it is absurd to challenge it in the details (prestidigitation).

7. Even if there are problems with the Darwinian model, there’s no justification for postulating an “intelligent designer” (true).


There is merit to many of these points.

For starters, Card is perfectly right that many scientists have acted childishly, in responding to challenges from outside their community of peer-reviewed doctorate holders. Some do resort to “credentialism” and “expertism” and other smug tactics. Carl Sagan was among the worst perpetrators of this almost ecclesiastical abuse of position, using authority and standing as cudgels against whatever he chose to call “superstition.” While evangelizing and sermonizing about the beauty and wonder of science, he would also assert a privileged position of wise authority, in terms that would have needed little modification -- just a little terminology-swapping -- to befit some ancient High Priest. Indeed, by making such claims, some of the best-known scientific spokesmen have walked right into a trap.

I have spoken elsewhere of our civilization’s obsession with the mythos of Suspicion of Authority - or SOA -- that pervades nearly all popular western culture. SOA had its modern origins in the same Enlightenment movement that engendered science, during an era of revolution against the old collusions of royalty and clergy that had kept our ancestors in bondage, for four millennia. Indeed, good science is fundamentally grounded in an enlightenment willingness to question established perceptions and accepted beliefs, challenging them to survive the give and take of reciprocal criticism and the experimental process. It cannot be over-emphasized that science was -- and remains -- the rebel phenomenon, opposing (and always endangered by) older habits of hierarchy and nostalgic dogma, that dominated nearly every other culture, keeping us shrouded in darkness.

Hence, it can be profoundly ironic when the opponents of science find ways to reverse roles and portray an entrenched scientific “establishment.” One seeking to protect its authoritarian power and turf, insisting upon a rigid catechism of accepted Truth. Hierarchs obsessed with suppressing alternative explanations or brushing aside inconveniently contrary evidence.

Yes, there are imperious authority figures in science. And yet, all in all, these accusations tend to be deeply unfair. Scientists are busy, busy people, doing among the most important things, ever. The topics of their research, from biology to starflight, are deeply attractive to a well-read public and to their credit, many scientists and science-journalists strive to share popularized accounts, on TV and in journals like DISCOVER Magazine. No prior “priesthood” ever worked so hard to share deep insights and include the average citizens who ultimately pay for it all.

Still they are very busy. So it is natural for their hackles to rise when they are chivvied and harried and sniped by indignant outsiders who express Suspicion of Authority to an indignant and unreasonable degree, insisting on attention being paid to this or that or the latest kooky thing. If as little as 98% of these “unconventional” notions are meritless or meretricious, one might hope that the remaining 2% will get attention from experts, in the due course of time. Yet, is only natural that scientists sometimes duck for cover, not only in their labs, but by using the same dismissing language toward all unsolicited, uncredentialed input, even by sincere and educated citizens with interesting questions to raise.

How to solve this problem? There is a desperate need for some system of merit that allows and encourages good ideas to rise up, outside the establishment, so that the best can legitimately demand attention, while denying credence to mere distracting dross. For this reason, I have long been a supporter of the Society for Amateur Scientists (http://www.sas.org/).

Having said all that, those of us who have worked in science know that no other system ever succeeded so well at compensating for flaws in human nature. Yes, powerful scientists, being human, cannot help sometimes throwing their weight around. On the other hand, bright graduate students desire nothing more deeply than to discover some chink or flaw in accepted paradigms, just the sort of tumultuous discovery that can make a reputation, forever. While human nature does keep pushing in one direction, toward priest-like hierarchies of dogma -- and this trend can be abetted by political pressures -- science still remains remarkably free of reactionary corruption. No other system has ever put in place as many counter-forces and incentives to shove the other way, constantly renewing the drive for innovation and change.

Alas, these subtleties are not well-known outside of academia and the lab. Given the prevalence of SOA in mass culture... and the palpable power of science in the modern age... it is only natural for tales of authoritarian repression to gain some romantic credence. Much of the UFO community, for example, revolves around paranoid fantasies, claiming that hundreds - even thousands - of the very best scientists and engineers might cooperate with a 60 year program, secretly investigating the greatest discovery of all time, without anyone blowing the whistle or breathing a word in all that time. Talk about fantasy!

Getting back to specifics, one of the underlying emotional appeals made by proponents of Intelligent Design has been to tug at this image of stodgy, establishment high priests, busy protecting a rigid dogma by repressing competition, resisting even a fair discussion of alternative ideas. As I described in another chapter, the ID community plays this card well, by appealing to the twin notions of completeness and fair play. (“Why should students be prevented from hearing all sides and deciding for themselves?”)

What can be profoundly irritating and counterproductive is when scientists inadvertently feed this image of ID as some kind of righteous underdog, instead of helping the public to see it as the stalking horse for a powerfully reactionary coalition. This cannot be done by oversimplifying or creating a strawman. As Orson Scott Card rightfully points out, Intelligent Design (ID) differs - in important ways -- from old style Creation Science (CS).


Next time we will deal with some of those differences, pondering whether those opposing evolution are, in fact, demonstrating it, in action, as they change and adapt to different social, educational and political circumstances.

See: Other Theories of Intelligent Design: Intelligent Design is Only One of Many Alternatives to Darwinian Evolution 

Miscellaneous Brin-News

Eventually, we’ll get back to a serialized tome on Modernism. But first…

1. Some of you have gone ahead and visited Amazon.com/shorts. Great! I now have two essays posted with a third soon. "Beleaguered Professionals vs Disempowered Citizens" is about a looming 21st Century power struggle between average people and the sincere, skilled professionals who are paid to protect us.

"The Power of Proxy Activism" - is about the best way for busy people, who are distracted by jobs and daily life, to help make a better world. (I'm donating my proceeds to worthy causes.)

Soon to follow - in the "Science" category - will be one about how the Mississippi River may someday win its struggle to escape human control. Plus, possibly, a serialized novel!

(Yes, you bloggers have seen much of this stuff and helped refine it. So spread to word! Give them a ratings boost. ;-)

2. An interesting rant on Intelligent Design (ID).  Unfortunately (or not) it is so good that the fellow needs to choose whether to rant or write a scholarly tome. Both are enjoyable, but they get incompatible at longer lengths. In this case, the author needs to eschew the use of "IDiot" and other rant-y disparagements.

Far more useful would be to take the ID people as they see themselves... using their own nomenclature ... and showing where they fit in the grand human tradition of conservative-nostalgic-romantic mold that ran every other culture in history. Every urban culture other than those based on the enlightenment featured the same collusion of clergy and aristocracy vs any possible source of uncertainty, social mobility and change. The so called "culture war" is thus not so much about left vs. right as it is between the Enlightenment and a vastly more traditional way of viewing the world.

(My own riff on this is at: The Real Culture War: Defining the Background)

What is fascinating about ID is the way the ID-nostalgists have been forced to adopt the memes of the enlightenment in order to push their case. They strive relentlessly to portray THEIR position as the openminded and fair one, while stodgy-elitist scientists are suppressing competition and fair debate.

By trying to give themselves a patina as "science" and calling evolution "another religion" they aim to portray ID as a bold underdog. When, of course, science is still the rebel world view, even after 200 years.

(See my article about Other Theories of Intelligent Design in a coming issue of SKEPTIC Magazine )

3. Oh, to see the newfangled attitude of fear translated into both art and practical solutions (and some impractical) see the "Safe" gadgets exhibition at MOMA the Museum of Modern Art at http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2005/safe/

4. This from Saturday Night Live:

"If convicted Libby could face the following penalties: Obstruction of justice: 10 years in prison. Making false statements: 5 years. Perjury: 4 years. Going to jail with the name Scooter: Priceless."

5.  Some folks in Australia and Asia have trouble directly accessing davidbrin.com. Try instead typing http://www.davidbrin.NET for a selection of alternate access options. (Gary and Rob were both helpful setting up this alternative methodology.) Any of you can help by visiting davidbrin.NET at least once or twice!

6. We’re on our way to see King Tut’s exhibit in LA. But I can’t get Steve Martin’s song about Tut out of my head.

"…born in Arizonia, moved to Babylonia, (got a Condo made-a stone-a)…"