Critical Analysis
I was brought up to believe that critical thinking was a good thing, and that idea affects much of my thinking today– if something is not to be questioned, I can’t help but be suspicious that it’s not on as firm footing as it pretends.
The recent fuss over "critical analysis" has brought this issue up many times. With people like Patricia Princenhouse in Ohio stating "Basically critical analysis is intelligent design relabeled" and Ken Miller adding "Everything is at stake" I’m made to wonder– is there something so wrong with evolutionary theory that it can’t survive anything less than blind acceptance as Fact? If a given belief or theory is strongly supported by the evidence, critical analysis can do nothing but confirm it. It’s only if the ground is shaky that teaching critical analysis can begin to undermine it, and only if the evidence really points the other way can it be equivalent to teaching a rival theory.
I should say though that not all evolutionists shy away from criticism, and Richard Sternberg of the Smithsonian Institute recently gave a refreshing testimony in South Carolina.
Perhaps there is no field of the biological sciences undergoing more rapid change than evolutionary research. Almost every day some new finding is reported that overturns— or seriously calls into question—long-standing assumptions and models. From the genome sequencing projects and studies of how genes operate to the discovery of new fossils, evolutionary biology is in a state of transition. Examples are simply too numerous to cover adequately. But here are a few. You have leaders in the field like W. Ford Doolittle presenting evidence that there is no “Tree of Life” but, instead, a complex web of gene sharing. Likewise, Carl Woese, one of the fathers of molecular phylogenetics, thinks the data support multiple, independent origins of organisms—that the notion of a Universal Common Ancestor is erroneous. Then again, evolutionary developmental biologists like Stuart Newman have performed experiments that suggest that animal body plans originated before genomes to “encode” them. I know it sounds radical, but he and other leaders in the field of “evo-devo” think that genes support development, but they don’t provide the blueprint. Embryos self-organize, and genes provide the building materials. Finally, even the specter of Lamarck has reappeared. Lamarck’s idea was, of course, that acquired traits can be passed on to offspring. None other than “Darwin Day” organizer Massimo Pigliucci is giving second thought to Lamarckism—after all, he notes, Darwin was a Lamarckian!
These are revolutionary times in evolutionary biology!
But we are not here this morning to discuss the latest in evolutionary thinking. We are here to discuss standards for teaching evolution in the state of South Carolina. Hence my reason for mentioning intellectual ferment in evolutionary research: we would be imprudent if we taught a particular theory as being the last word on the subject—as if all that remained is to place a few numbers after the Darwinian decimal point.
Now the subtext of the “teach evolution” controversy is usually “Darwinism: Right or Wrong?” I think this is a mistake. Darwinism is “right” in many respects. Mutations do occur and natural selection does operate. However, it is incomplete. Carefully study a textbook on evolutionary theory—not a popularization but an actual book on the mathematics of the theory—and you will notice several things. There are no equations for the development of organisms or even the cell. Nor is there any specification for how all the cellular molecules come together to shape a fly or a whale. Why the origin of new genes alone is a matter of differing views, models, and conjectures. By the way, this is not a trivial matter. It is a core issue of evolutionary biology. And this brings me to my major point:
While Darwinian theory should be taught in the science classroom, as rigorously and fully as is appropriate, to present the theory as complete and sufficient for understanding evolution is inaccurate—and thus misleading.Not only that but I can think no better way to spark a student’s interest in evolution than to explore it in a critical way. Either evolution is an exciting, evolving field, or we are reciting passages from 1859; as though we know all there is to know. Such a stance is inimical to both the tentative nature of science and the intellectual process. This is why the suggested revised indicators can do much to improve science education—by stimulating a student’s interest in an open area.
I believe much of the future of evolutionary theory will depend on which of these internal factions wins out in the end. A commitment to dogmatism and a refusal to allow questions can only lead to stagnation and failure as science.
If what the author of this post is suggesting is that what we need is more “critical debate” about the veracity of evolutionary theory, then I must disagree. Such a position betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the function of debate in science, and particularly the function of “debate” in the context of evolutionary theory. Furthermore, to single out evolutionary theory for this kind of treatment is, as judge Jones pointed out in the Dover decision, simply a smoke screen for “creationism.” As Ken Miller has asked, why single out evolutionary theory as the only branch of science in which we should encourage (much less require, via statute) debate? Isn’t all of science legitimately a subject for debate? If you go to a meeting of scientists, you see *lots* of debate – sometimes it resembles a hockey game more than it does an academic colloquy. Believe me, there is plenty of debate within the scientific community, about virtually every aspect of science. But, by singling out evolutionary theory as the *only* subject about which “debate” is encouraged/required, it sends two messages, both of them seriously misleading: 1) That most of science is settled dogma, since debate about it isn’t encouraged/required, and 2) Given that all other branches of science are *not* included in the “debate” requirement, there must be something seriously wrong *only* with evolutionary theory. Both of these implications are pernicious, and both of them seriously misrepresent the actual situation that exists among the community of scholars/scientists. Debate is the heart and soul of science, as it is for all intellectual pursuits. But in science, what gets debated is one’s experimental results, and their implications for the relevent theories to which they appertain. So, let the “intelligent design theorists” become “intelligent design SCIENTISTS:” let them do some actual, empirical research (i.e. not just “theory spinning” nor showing the deficiencies in evolutionary theory), let them try to get it published in legitimate peer-reviewed scientific journals that publish primarily experimental results (i.e. Nature or Science, not the Journal of Theoretical Biology), and let them get down on the floor and slog it out with other people doing the same thing. That is to say, until you have done all of that, you have absolutely no business whatsoever taking your case to school boards. You haven’t earned that right in the trenches, the way all other scientists have. Of all the soi dissant “intelligent design theorists” I have ever read (and I’ve read all of them as far as I know), the only one with even a shred of actual scientific credibility is Michael Behe. After all, he actually goes into a laboratory and does real research. However, his only published paper on the subject of “intelligent design theory” wasn’t the product of lab research at all; it was a computer model using limiting assumptions that crippled any real-world applicability of his hypotheses. Science isn’t done in high school; teaching good critical thinking is. This means giving students a solid grounding in basic scientific method (i.e. the experiment —>publication—>debate model outlined above) and an understanding of basic scientific reasoning (i.e. the hypothetico-deductive method, combined with empirical verification, based on methodological naturalism and Occam’s razor). The, either give students a taste of the debates in ALL of the sciences (if you have time) or give them the basic information they will need to judge such debates for themselves when and if they finally encounter them. Years ago, I had a discussion with a physicist at Cornell, who is also a best-selling author. He said he was constantly getting fan mail asking him how to become a writer. His answer is easy: write. The problem is, most of those fans want the cachet that comes with being a writer, without having to do any real writing. As far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly what “intelligent design theorists” want: to be considered scientists without doing any actual science. So, want to be accepted into the scientific community as a scientist? Do some science (for a change)…
Comment by Allen MacNeill — March 9, 2006 @ 10:56 pm
Allen,
Your statement is completely misleading. No one is saying that only evolutionary theory should be debated. Show me precisely where someone said that this was the only theory that should be targeted for debate. You also did nothing to address the previous comment.
Dan
Comment by Daniel McCarthy — March 10, 2006 @ 12:24 am
“No one is saying that only evolutionary theory should be debated.” Really? So the “critical analysis” part of the now-defunct Ohio curriculum guidelines mentioned all of the other sciences? And the constitutional amendment before the Nevada legislature, that includes chemistry and physics, etc.? And the bills in Alabama, Michigan South Carolina, Kentucky, and the Kansas high school curriculum guidelines - they don’t refer specifically to evolution, but rather to all of the sciences?
You know they don’t, so don’t make statements like “No one is saying that only evolutionary theory should be debated.” That’s a deliberate, grotesque, and very easily refuted misrepresentation of reality.
True, you don’t say that on this blog, but that isn’t what you stated in your comment.
Now, as to Sternberg’s disquisition on the lack of mathematical models in evolutionary biology, I’ve posted to the IDEA-DISCUSS list that it’s literally impossible to formulate mathematical models for any “historical” natural science, including biology, cosmology, geology, and so forth. This is because all historical natural sciences include irreducibly contingent events (such as asteroid collisions, volcanic eruptions, plate disjunctions, etc.), which cannot possibly be included in the kinds of mathematical descriptions that form the basis for the non-historical natural sciences (such as chemistry and physics).
Furthermore, to require that such fields as evolutionary development or macroevolutionary theory produce fully consistent, predictive mathematical models that can be tested using standard statistical methods is ludicrous. The objects and processes we’re talking about here as so much more complex than the most complex physical system as to be virtually impossible to describe mathematically. After all, it took physicists almost a decade to mathematically describe (in quantum mechanical theory) the structure and function of the hydrogen atom. It’s still virtually impossible to write equations that are more than simply descriptive for most chemical reactions (chemical formulas are essentially descriptive, not analytic).
Sternberg’s characterization of the state mathematical abstraction of biology betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of mathematics in science. The mathematical models don’t *define* natural processes, they merely *describe* them. If the process is relatively simple, the mathematical description will be simple, too. But biological systems are complex beyond anything imaginable in chemistry or physics.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — March 10, 2006 @ 3:19 am
There are sevaral issues being confused here. The first is the difference between analysis and debate. I happen to think debate, even on scientific issues, is a good thing and has a purgative effect on a great deal of nonsense, but I wasn’t arguing for that in the post above.
In an astronomy classroom critically analyzing steady state theory is almost equivalent to teaching big bang theory, because the evidence is strong on that side. But critically analyzing big bang theory is not in any way, shape, or form, equivalent to teaching steady state theory; rather, it is more likely to put big bang theory on a firmer foundation. Besides, as Sternberg noted so well above, it helps to generate new interest in the field. Students just don’t like dogmatism, and there are many who won’t give evolution another look after the very poor way–’this is the truth, believe it!’– in which it is taught.
The second point– it would certainly be good if more people went out and did experimental research in intelligent design, but you are making a false dichotomy between “real” and “pretend” scientists in your comment. Theoretical scientists are just as much real scientists as those who spend 24/7 in the lab.
Comment by Freawaru — March 10, 2006 @ 9:14 pm