Evolutionists Often Lambast Intelligent Design; Should ID Lash Back?

ABSTRACT: Evolutionists and their critics are engaged in battle. It is a war of words. There are hawks, dogmatists and extremists in both camps. How strongly and in what manner should intelligent design proponents react to the criticisms of evolutionists? That's the subject of this blog entry. It recommends taking a courteous and respectful approach while remaining extremely honest and forthright in discussions.

Evolution is seen by proponents as a slow accumulation, mindless, goal-less, half-blind, round-about-way of changing the genetic makeup of species. I see its labelling of clear-cut empirical causes in the environment as not its strong suite, though its insights about the statistical probabilities of fortuitous genetic alterations is. Neither can evolution legitimately be criticized as a pointless, directionless, or unproductive process, as some critics believe. The theory of evolution models a chain of fortuitous, reinforcing, unplanned events that link up and cross paths with natural laws. Its result is modeled as the mindless accumulation of benefitial genetic traits, though in an agonizingly slow manner. The accumulative effects, however, are nothing short of astounding.

Evolution has generators (of genetic variation), but it lacks explicit processing forces (selective causes). That is to say it has no easily identified processors in nature. The theory envisions genetic errors in resulting from the process of organism replication as seeding change (providing the raw material in the form of genetic replication changes, viz., 'errors'), and survival loadings/effects in the environment selectively weeding out (selecting) the final results. But hypotheses generated by the theory are in most cases rather broad, nondescript models. Proponents are often not very certain in just how all this works; certainly not enough for empirically testing hypotheses against competing, alternative explanations. The basic mindset that typically comes out is unilateral--that there are no competing views. Even the null hypothesis is considered inconceivable at times as a possiblity. General causes are asserted as explanations, but are for the most part never empirically checked out. Descriptive statistics and probabilities are the field's mainstay, but not the use of statistics that would bear out matters of cause, such as multivariate statistics or regression.

It can also legitimately be said that the theory is quite defensive, esoteric, conjectural, and nonempirical when it comes to any criticism about the scientific need of checking empirically for factors of cause/influence. This is tantamount to check for actual causes or influences in the organism's environment. Its proponents are thus simple in their approach and uncritical in action when dealing with opposition to their views, essentially resorting to name calling, not to mention the practice of showing absolute closed-mindedness about competitive views. It is as if they are at war with all criticism. Lashing back is immediate and across the board, and especially heaped on views that even remotely identify with religion.

Non-evolutionists are split as a result over the matter of how much criticism to level against evolution. It has been my experience that individuals who entertain a solely text-based faith (a completely Bible-based view) such as traditional creationists tend to actively entertain the idea that believing in macroevolution is a stupid idea. But at least some scientists believing in teleology think not. They understand that macroevolutionists essentially approach the data from a different theoretical perspective. Some evolutionists are even not aware of this essential difference, however. They are not dumb, stupid, crazy, or ignorant, however. They are just not very self-aware about their value judgments or world view.

It has been my experience that only evolutionists who consistently write badly and argue illogically on weekdays can be justifiably thought of as dumb. Actually, it is a bad approach. For that matter, any consistently poor writer and debater could be considered to be doing the same. Nevertheless, unless such behavior is a consistent, a pattern woven like a thread in an individual's multiple arguments, he or she could be just having a bad hair day or be languishing in a stupor. So it's always best to hold in reserve the meanest of criticisms until one has watched and assessed a writer over an extended period of time. In a nutshell, I recommend critics not try to jump to the practice of using harsh terms without first establishing a good reason. Even then, the decent, careful and respectful use of labels with people and opinions is always appreciated.

These suggestions are biased by my own personal experiences: I wrote my masters thesis in anthropology at a major midwestern U.S. university in explicit support of the macroevolution of primates, the evolution of sexual behavior in primates to be exact. That wasn't being unintelligent at the time. I just held a different theoretical explanation for the same findings as I do now (actually fewer at that earlier date). It has been my long-term belief that this is the most basic difference between the origin camps in America, all insults and purgative labels aside. ID scientists (but not many creationists in my experience) appear to realize this fact. Unfounded criticism is one of the first things typically heaped on evolution by creationists meeting an ID proponent for the first time, but not by ID proponents. That is the fair-play reason why ID's different historical roots and ideological distinctiveness deserve to be more widely recognized. But there is little fair play or attentiveness to the issue of truth shown in debates of origins these days. It has the flavor of a battle waged between political interest groups.

A resolution of the hostilities should come down to a matter of preparing good historical accounts versus promoting the self interest of one's profession. It is a quick and easy fix to post creed-based reactions in a bombastic manner. Similarly, one can get an emotional lift from contributing a one-sided salvo into the perceived climate of a war of propaganda. However, some ID scientists are former evolutionists. As a result, harsh views against evolutionists typically will be hard to come by from them. On the other hand, whenever a position or point is counterproductive to the evolutionists' cause nowadays, some of the latter group won't readily or easily admit that it is a valid fact even when it has become a matter of simple historical record. Just like failing to admit Stephen Gould's remark about the lack of transitional fossils being the biggest kept secret in evolutionist circles or Karl Popper's quickly retracted remark that the theory of evolution was among the most unsatisfying of all scientific explanation, it's as much like pulling teeth to get evolutionists to admit these facts as it is to get a Bible-based believer to admit that microevolution is a scientifically proven fact. It may even someday reduce down to different definitions of what various groups consider evolution to be, although this could also turn out to be a gross oversimplification of the facts. Still, creationists and evolutionists' stubborn and blind dismissal out-of-hand of any position-damaging evidence and the direct consequences of such an approach to evidence seem to be the most profound and poignant feature in the whole debate. It is blind, but not dumb faith at work, I suggest. It derives not from any real lack of intelligence, but from insular adamant support on both sides from some interest groups, a very harsh political agenda within others, and a dogmatic way of perceiving things in a few very vocal proponents.

There are thus extremists and shallow-minded thinkers on both sides. Writing from the standpoint of feeling aggrieved is part of being human. I wouldn't call any of it dumb, however. It is just not a characteristic feature of being a generally tolerant, highly reflective professional who is willing to look at the assumptions underlying his or her positions and admit the magnitude and direction of their effects. Instead, many proponents slide across the surface of established rules, detesting caveats and immediately rejecting all thinking to the contrary, even though Darwin's own writings reflect a deliberation in thought and care in reasoning carried to the extreme. Then again, I too have been caught on the Internet with my pants down on that hopefully infrequent, irreverently bad day.