The Darwinian Revolutions Video Series

The Darwinian Revolutions

An online video lecture series
in honor of the 150th anniversary
of the original publication of
Charles Darwin's Origin of Species


Produced by:
The Cybertower at Cornell University

Written, directed and narrated by:
Allen MacNeill, Senior Lecturer
The Biology Learning Skills Center
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Videography by:
Dina Banning

Sound Engineering by:
Colbert McClennan

Technical Direction by:
Becky Lane

Videotaped at:
The Museum of the Earth
The Paleontological Research Institution
Ithaca, New York

Voiceover Narration Recorded at:
Fall Creek Studios
1201 North Tioga Street
Ithaca, New York

Images Obtained at:
WikiMedia Commons
Stebbins/Simpson/Dobzhanky photo credit: Martin Tracey

Galapagos Video Credit:
Prof. William Provine

It's finally done! After more than a year of meetings, writing, image acquisition, videotaping, sound recording, editing, revising, captioning, and (most of all) thinking, our video series on the Darwinian revolutions is now online!

This series of six online videos is a brief introduction to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and its implications. Here is a brief synopsis of the six episodes (click on each episode title to go to the linked video):


Episode One: Darwinian Revolutions
We begin with an overview of the series, which has been released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection revolutionized both the biological sciences and our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. In this episode we learn that Darwin's theory has itself evolved in the 150 years since it was published. We also learn that Darwin actually presented two theories:
• a theory of descent with modification from common ancestors, and
• the theory of natural selection, Darwin's mechanism for evolution.


Episode Two: Evolutionary Ancestors
Beginning with an overview of Darwin's predecessors, we learn how the idea of evolution by natural means alone goes back more than two thousand years, to ancient Greece and Rome. Democritus of Abdera first proposed the "ground rules" for naturalist evolution, which were later extended by the Roman poet and philosopher, Lucretius. However, these early naturalistic theories were eclipsed for almost two millennia by the ideas of Plato and Aristotle.


Episode Three: Lamarck's Theory
In the 19th century, Jean Baptiste Lamarck set the stage for Darwin's monumental achievement with his Philosophie Zoologique (published in 1809), which advanced a theory of evolution by means of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Lamarck's theory was the first theory of evolution to include a testable mechanism for evolutionary change — the inheritance of acquired characteristics — and provides a useful comparison with Darwin's theory.


Episode Four: One Long Argument
Darwin, whose academic training at Cambridge University was in Anglican theology, became an acclaimed naturalist and science writer following the five-year voyage of HMS Beagle. Using the notes and specimens that he had collected during the voyage, Darwin spent twenty years refining his theory, first published in 1859, of evolution by natural selection.


Episode Five: Mendel and the Eclipse of Darwin
Darwin's theory of descent with modification was accepted by most scientists worldwide within ten years of its publication in 1859. However, his theory of natural selection was widely criticized, and by the turn of the 20th century was widely considered to be dead. However, the work of Gregor Mendel, who discovered the foundations of what we now call genetics, provided a mechanism by which Darwin's theory could be revived and expanded.


Episode Six: The Evolving Synthesis
In the final segment of this series, we visit the The Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York, whose director, Dr. Warren Allman, discusses the importance of such museums to the science of evolutionary biology. We also hear from Cornell professor William Provine, who discusses Darwin's work and its importance to the history and philosophy of biology. He tells us how Darwin's original theory of natural selection was integrated into the sciences of population genetics, ecology, physiology, paleontology, embryology, and botany, to produce a "modern synthesis" of evolutionary theory. Prof. Provine also tells us how the "modern synthesis" has continued to evolve, and that today is the most exciting time yet in the history of Darwin's scientific revolution.

This has been an exciting year: the 200th anniversary of the publication of Lamarck's Philosophy Zoologique, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. There have been many events marking these anniversaries, and there will be many more. As Will Provine says, the theory of evolution is more dynamic, more exciting, more widely accepted, and more widely applied than at any time in the past century and a half. With the accelerating pace of discoveries in evolutionary biology and their applications in biology, medicine, psychology, economics, and even literature and art, the 21st century shows all indications of being what the founders of the "modern synthesis" called it back in 1959: the "century of Darwin" and his theory of evolution by natural selection.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Why I Post Comments on Creationist and ID Blogs

A fellow blogger asked me recently "Why waste your time posting [at creationist and ID blogs] at all? You do not seem to have a receptive audience." Other people ask me why I generally treat creationists and ID supporters with respect, rather than taking every opportunity to heap scorn and ridicule upon them. Here's what I hope is an adequate explanation to both of these questions.

I post comments at creationist and ID blogs (when I have the time, which is definitely not all the time) because I expect that there are a lot of people who read these comments without participating directly in such debates. This is why I try to keep as civil a tone as possible, especially when my opponents use ad hominem arguments, character assassination, insults, and ridicule. The contrast between their tactics and mine undermines their credibility (and, by extension, that of their soi dissant “science”). Indeed, some commentator’s comments are so insulting that I refuse to respond to them, and I believe that this does not pass unnoticed by readers who are not yet irrationally committed to one side or the other.

Also, as a teacher (currently in my 35th year of teaching at Cornell University), I feel a professional responsibility to correct some of the more egregious misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the science of evolutionary biology which are promulgated at creationist and ID blogs. Some of these misrepresentations clearly stem from ignorance, and in a gratifying number of cases some the commentators whom I have corrected have thanked me for the information and references I have provided.

However, other misrepresentations are apparently part of a deliberate and ongoing effort to distort the public record and deliberately misrepresent the relevant scientific information for political and religious purposes. I strongly believe that this kind of mendacity should be exposed for what it is, and for what it isn’t (i.e. it isn’t science).

Furthermore, I have always tried to emulate the long-standing Quaker tradition of “speaking truth to power”, which is the opposite of “preaching to the choir”. It means confronting directly what I perceive to be misunderstanding (and what I perceive to be deliberate mendacity), rather than limiting my interactions to people with whom I already agree. I agree with Charles Darwin, who said that he paid much more attention to the criticisms of people who disagreed with him than the praise of people who agreed with him. Like Darwin, I find that debating with people with whom I disagree helps me greatly to clarify my own position on the relevant issues, and to help my opponents clarify theirs. I believe that it would be a terribly boring (and non-progressive) world in which everyone agreed upon every subject, and so I am grateful to some of the commentators here for helping me improve my understanding of the relevant issues and my ability to argue persuasively for what I perceive to be the best supported position.

Like Hegel, I believe that genuine synthesis usually arises out of the clash between thesis and antithesis, and that progress in human understanding is almost always gained at the price of diligence, honesty, and honor. As my fencing master often says, “a gentleman is always gracious and dignified in defeat, humble and gentle in victory”. I have to the best of my ability tried to account myself according to this standard of conduct, and believe that the world would be a better place if everyone tried to do so.

Finally, to the best of my ability, I try to “fight the good fight” in defense of what I understand to be an accurate description of reality. I expect my opponents to do the same. When they do, I tell them so. Indeed, if they do a good job, I congratulate them, especially if they persuade me to change my mind, as the result of sufficiently convincing arguments. However, when my opponents depart from honorable and honest argumentation and stoop to ad hominem attacks, character assassination, insults, and ridicule, I call them on it and I inform them in no uncertain terms that I will no longer respond to them.

The same principles apply to this blog, and can be read here.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Rescuing Darwin from His Detractors (and Supporters)

TITLE: Rescuing Darwin

AUTHOR: Paul Fayter

SOURCE: The United Church Observer

SUMMARY: Ever since the Origin of Species was first published 150 years ago, scientists and creationists have tried to spin the religious views of Charles Darwin their way.

COMMENTARY: This article by Paul Fayter (appearing on a website sponsored by The United Church Observer, a Christian organization) directly contradicts many of the assertions made by some evolutionary biologists and most ID supporters, including most of the egregious distortions in Benjamin Wiker's recent book,
The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin.

Unlike Wiker and most ID supporters, Paul Fayter has spent a significant fraction of his professional life studying Charles Darwin and his work. Here's what he found:

- Darwin was not an atheist when he wrote the Origin of Species and therefore could not possibly have written it as an "apology" for his atheism;

- the most important factors in his eventual agnosticism were 1) the death of his daughter, Annie, and 2) his view that a benevolent deity would not have created a world with such horrors as parasites (and the indiscriminate death of innocents);

- that despite his agnosticism, Darwin remained a "practicing" member of both the Church of England and his local parish church;

- that despite his embrace of the science of evolutionary theory, he did not descend into a life of libertinism and immorality, nor did he distort his theory to support any political position (including eugenics or "social darwinism");

- he remained a dedicated scientist, a loving husband, a doting father, a devoted member of his parish, and an unwavering opponent of slavery and its concomitant evils; and

- he also remained what would now be considered to be a "theistic evolutionist" until his death.

Here is Faytor's conclusion:

Darwin was able to reconcile the power and glory of a good and loving God with nature's cold indifference and manifest cruelty - the infamous and pitiless "survival of the fittest" - by viewing struggle, pain, suffering and death not as the direct will of God but as the result of the impersonal operation of universal laws. The process of evolution by means of natural selection was deadly and wasteful, and yet, as Darwin concluded in The Origin, it had a higher, nobler purpose. Higher species would evolve. The Creator - the God of scientific theism - lawfully drew good out of evil and progress out of pain.

Near the end of his life, Darwin thought it impossible to conceive that "this immense and wonderful universe" was "the result of blind chance or necessity." No, it still seemed that the world had been willed into being. "I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man," he wrote in his autobiography, "and I deserve to be called a Theist." At the same time, Darwin believed that "the mystery of the beginning of all things" was simply unsolvable; and so he also declared, "I for one must be content to remain an agnostic."

All of this directly contradicts Wiker's biography of Darwin and the opinions of most ID supporters. Demonizing Darwin, especially when there are very good (and unbiased) biographies of Darwin (not to mention his own, very candid autobiography) does nothing to harm Darwin's scientific reputation. By contrast, the fundamental misunderstanding among many ID supporters of how real science is done does quite a bit to harm ID's scientific reputation.

Neither evolutionary biology nor ID will be advanced or forestalled as scientific enterprises by pro- or anti-hagiographies of Charles Darwin (or any other individual scientist or ID supporter). This will happen only when sufficient field and laboratory work has been done and the results published in reputable scientific journals to decide between them. So far ID supporters have chosen to pursue a political program and the vilification of world-renowned scientists, rather than do the requisite science. Until they decide to abandon ad hominem arguments and actually focus on the science, they will remain (like "scientific creationism") a cautionary footnote to the history of the triumph of evolutionary biology.

In closing, I find it quite significant that only ID supporters refer to Darwin as a "little God". Like all evolutionary biologists, I consider him to have been a dedicated and talented observer of nature and a genuinely good person, but (like all of us) a plain and simple (and, of course, fallible) human.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Evolution, Intelligent Design, and the Banana Diet

There has been a lot of speculation lately about the status of "intelligent design". Last December, I posted an essay on the demise of the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness clubs. At that time it was clear that the IDEA club movement at American colleges and universities was dead. Despite protestations to the contrary, the available data indicate that this is still the case.

Which leads to a more interesting question: what is the current status of the intelligent design "movement"? This question is even more significant this month, as November 24th marks the 150th anniversary of the original publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, the founding document of the science of biology and the most influential book ever published in the natural sciences. Although some ID supporters assert that ID is compatible with evolutionary theory, it is clear from even a cursory examination of their views that the majority of ID supporters are opposed to the idea of evolution in virtually all of its versions.

Which brings me to the point of this blogpost: what impact has ID had on mainstream evolutionary theory, and which of these alternative explanations for the origin of adaptations and the diversity of life is gaining in veracity and which is losing? One way to answer this question is to analyze the frequency with which the terms "evolution" and "intelligent design" appear in internet searches and in news stories in the mainstream media. To assess this, Google has a marvelous tool: Google Trends. The following two graphs were produced using Google Trends. I have copied the graphs directly from the relevant web pages, adding only the red line at 1.5 (on the Y axis) to make possible comparison of relative values.


The first graph (above) shows the frequency of the term "evolution" as it appeared in Google searches and in news articles on the web over the past six years. What the upper graph shows is that Google search volume for the term "evolution" has fluctuated over the past six years, but held relatively steady. The lower graph shows that there has been a steady increase in news articles about evolution over the past six years.


The second graph (above) shows the frequency of the term "intelligent design" as it appeared in Google searches and in news articles on the web over the same six years. As you can see, these graphs are markedly different than those for "evolution". These graphs show that prior to 2005 there were very few searches and almost no news stories for "intelligent design". In 2005 this pattern changed abruptly: by the end of the year, there were over ten times as many Google searches for the term "intelligent design", and a concomitant spike in news articles on the same subject. This spike corresponds to the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trialin Dover, Pennsylvania, in the course of which the ID movement gained national attention. The decision in that trial, issued by Judge John E. Jones (a Republican, appointed by President George W. Bush), was widely hailed as a massive defeat for the ID movement.

This assessment is borne out by the remainder of the graph. As you can see, both internet searches and news articles on ID have declined precipitously since December of 2005, falling to almost unmeasurably low levels.


This graph (above), comparing the search volume and news article frequency of the terms "evolution" (in blue) and "intelligent design" (in red) is even more revealing. Here it can easily be seen that both search volume and news articles on "evolution" have consistently dwarfed those for "intelligent design", even during the period covering the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. Furthermore, there is a steady upward trend in the frequency of news articles on evolution, while the frequency of news articles on intelligent design has fallen to almost unmeasurable levels.

So, what are we to make of these trends? Clearly, interest in evolution is on a steady upward course, which just as clearly reflects its importance in the sciences. As I have written elsewhere, the fundamental concepts of the theory of evolution by natural selection have been steadily spreading into all of the branches of biology, and have recently begun to transform such disparate fields as psychology, literature, and even diets and nutrition and art.

By contrast, interest in intelligent design exploded in 2005 and has crashed since then. What other phenomena exhibit this same "boom and bust" pattern? One such transitory phenomenon is the explosion in fad diets. For example, this graph shows the Google search volume and news article frequency for the term "banana diet" (the choice of this term was at least partly in honor of young Earth creationist and ID supporter, Ray Comfort):


The similarity between this graph (above) and the graph for "intelligent design" is striking, and is probably no accident. As many critics of ID have asserted, the ID movement has essentially consisted of a public relations campaign, rather than a scientific research program. Public relations campaigns, like advertising campaigns in general, often show the "boom and bust" pattern shown in the "intelligent design" and "banana diet" graphs. This is because public relations campaigns do not depend on veracity, but rather on appearance. The supporters of ID (such as the Discovery Institute in Seattle, WA) have consistently promoted ID as a scientific research program, but even a cursory examination shows that, while there is abundant evidence that ID is a quasi-religious movement, there is virtually no empirical research being conducted by its supporters.

And so, as we approach the 150th anniversary of the founding of the rapidly expanding science of evolutionary biology, we may note in passing that this anniversary can also be used to mark the demise of the ID movement, a phenomenon with all of the earmarks of a passing fad and all of the scientific content of the banana diet.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Memento mori: The Metaphysics of The Game

I just lost the game. And so have you, especially if you know what I'm talking about.

Some background: my eldest son, Conall, attended a highland dance camp this past summer. While he was there, he learned about The Game. Being obsessed with games in general and mind games in particular (like his dad), he came home and told us all about it, and has since reveled in telling us every time he loses the game. Since learning about The Game, I have myself announced the same to several of my classes at Cornell, each time to a chorus of groans.

So, how does The Game work?

The Game has only three rules:

1) Everyone is always playing The Game.

2) Whenever you think of The Game, you lose.

3) Having lost The Game, you must announce this to at least one other person (usually by saying or writing "I just lost The Game").

Some active players of The Game also assert that there are two corollaries:

4) You can lose The Game multiple times.

5) You can only lose The Game once every half hour.

That is, The Game "resets" after half an hour, so that having forgotten that you are playing, you can lose again and again and again...

Having lost The Game many, many times since Conall told me the rules, it has occurred to me that there is a metaphysical dimension to The Game. Thinking about The Game is essentially the same thing as thinking about one's own death. That is, The Game is a kind of memento mori. Most of us go through most of our lives without often thinking about the incontrovertible fact that all of us will, at some point in the indefinite future, cease to exist. We will all, in other words, "lose The Game".

There have been several times in my life when I have become bemused by the thought of my own mortality. The first time it happened I was four years old. We were living in an old farmhouse on Scott Road, east of Homer, New York, and I was walking up the stairs to my bedroom. Between one step and the next, it occurred to me that I would someday die - that I would cease to exist. This realization was very shocking to me, and came back into my mind steadily for some time.

But then, I forgot about it...for a while. Since then, I have gotten caught in the same "becoming aware of mortality loop" several times, and each time it has had the same quality as losing The Game. That is, it comes with a sense of "doubled consciousness", in which I have become conscious of my own stream of consciousness, and its eventual termination.

Many theologians (and some evolutionary biologists) have speculated that the origin of religion is grounded in the realization of personal mortality. From an evolutionary standpoint, the argument is as follows:

1) Individuals who avoid situations in which their lives are threatened survive (and can therefore reproduce) more often than individuals who do not avoid such situations.

2) Individuals who are aware of their own mortality are more likely to avoid situations in which their lives are potentially threatened.

3) Ergo, the cognitive operation in which one becomes conscious of one's mortality has adaptive value; that is, it can increase in frequency among the individuals that make up a population as the result of natural selection.

Some evolutionary psychologists (myself among them) have argued that the capacity for such cognitive operations is the basis for our evolved psychology, and that there is a positive feedback relationship between ideas like "mortality" (and The Game) and the underlying neurological wiring that facilitates the acquisition and transmission of such ideas. This idea, known as "gene-meme coevolution", was first and most rigorously explored by Charles Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson in their 1983 book, Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. The underlying ideas in their work were summarized in non-technical language in Promethean Fire: Reflections on the Origin of Mind.

Having pondered both The Game and mortality, it seems quite plausible to me that our minds are indeed adapted to the kind of mental operation that results in both "losing The Game" and recalling our personal mortality. And so, I expect to go on losing The Game until I lose The Game...and now, having read this, so will you.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

What's So "Intelligent" About "Intelligent Design"?

Many of the debates about "intelligent design" (ID) that I have read online have focused on the defintion of "intelligent". This is not necessarily because we all agree what "design" means, but rather because we know even less about that quality we refer to with the term "intelligent". If one cannot define what one means by "intelligent", then any attempt to define or investigate "intelligent design" would seem to me to be a futile exercise.

Some ID supporters have suggested substituting the term "purposeful design" for the term "intelligent design". To me, this sounds almost redundant; after all, design is all about "purpose", isn't it? And if that's the case, then "purposeful design" reduces to "purposeful purpose" or "designed design". Furthermore, it's not clear to me that the terms "intelligent" and "purposeful" are necessarily interchangeable, or mean even similar things.

Many ID supporters seem most upset about the implication that evolutionary theory is "random". That is, the processes by which new characteristics of living organisms come into being are not necessarily the result of intentional design. To many of them, this would eliminate a supernatural force or deity as the causal factor in biological evolution. Ergo, if one is committed to the intervention in nature of a supernatural force or deity, one must deny a priori the possibility that new characteristics of living organisms can come into being without "intention".

However, it is not necessarily the case that "purposeful" (i.e. teleological) objects and processes are necessarily non-random. First of all, it seems to me that "purposeful" is not an antonym for "random". For example, consider a falling rock: its movement as it falls is most definitely not random. Neither its trajectory nor its acceleration are "random" at all. On the contrary, they are predictable to such a degree that we call the mathematical description by which we can predict the movement of falling objects a "law" - the "law of gravity".

Ergo, it seems to me that the best antonym for "random" is "predictable", in the sense of being able to predict successive states in a dynamically changing system.

Given the foregoing, what is the best antonym for "purposeful"? Forgive me, but I think the only reasonable answer is "non-purposeful". This then forces one to define what one means by "purposeful". To me, the best definition of a "purposeful" (or "teleological", if you prefer the more technical term) object or process is "a dynamical process (or component of a dynamical process) in which the dynamical entity's actions are actively and homeotelically regulated by a cybernetic process that functions according to a pre-existing program, the outcome of which is a specified end state.

A homeotelic process is one in which a dynamical entity reacts to external perturbations from its original trajectory in such a way as to regain its original goal orientation. For example, an arrow fired from a bow is not homeotelic, whereas a heat-seeking missile is. By the same logic, a snowflake growing in a supercooled cloud is not homeotelic, whereas a virus replicating in a host cell is.

In my opinion, most of the arguments about "intelligent design" founder, not on the definition of "intelligent" but rather on the definition of "design". If one focuses not on "design" but rather on "purpose" (i.e. teleology), much of the disagreement (like a boojum) vanishes softly and silently away.

Indeed, I think the qualifier "intelligent" is unnecessary, and quite possibly redundant. Why argue over something – that is, "intelligence" – that is indefinable without self-reference?

That is to say, "purpose" is very clearly and unambiguously defined in cybernetics, as Gregory Bateson and Norbert Weiner pointed out a half a century ago. "Purpose" (aka "teleology") are what this argument is really about, and so it would help immensely if all of the participants on both sides of the debate would define it in such a way as to render its presence or absence empirically verifiable.

The same could also be wished about "intelligence", but I see no real hope for this, given that virtually every definition of "intelligence" given in this thread (and all previous threads) is neither empirically verifiable nor applicable to simple systems such as those found in viruses or very simple cells. How "intelligent" is the lambda bacteriophage? Compared to a human, not much; compared to a crystal of sodium chloride, tremendously so. Indeed, what separates crystallized viruses from crystallized salts is precisely the "quality" that separates life from non-life and "purposeful" from "non-purposeful" things.

Termites build termite mounds using a surprisingly simple set of "decision rules". For example, one decision rule (which is clearly "wired in" to the nervous system of worker termites) is the rule to stack particles of sand on top of each other and glue them together using a material like saliva in such a way as to produce an arch (this is beautifully illustrated in E. O. Wilson's masterpiece, The Insect Societies). In Höldobler and Wilson's new book, Superorganism, they explain in detail how insect societies produce astonishingly complex, adaptive, functional dwelling places, "highways" (army and driver ants), "farms" and "pharmacies" (leaf-cutter ants), etc. without anything that remotely resembles what we would call "intelligence" or "consciousness" (remember, their brains are smaller than a poppy seed and their life spans are measured in days).

Furthermore, none of the instructions for doing all of this "design" is encoded directly into the DNA of any given social insect. Rather, the instructions are "compiled" from the individual activities of thousands of individual insects performing very simple, stereotyped actions (mostly coordinated by chemical pheromones). In other words, the "intelligence" that produces the marvelous structures and functions of insect societies is a collective "intelligence" consisting of a small set of "decision rules" hard-wired into the nervous systems of individual insects.

Might it not be the case that this same process is the paradigm for all biological complexity? This would not only explain where the "designer" is (it's all around / inside us) and who the "designer" is (it's everyone, interacting collectively in producing the "superorganism"), it would also present what ID has so far completely lacked: an empirical research program. That is, one could search for the "decision rules" that produce biological complexity, in viruses, cells, insect societies, primate societies, and human societies, and figure out how the interaction of such rules produces biological complexity. And when you did that, you would have recreated the already-existing field of biology known as sociobiology, which is a branch of evolutionary biology.

Termites do not have "goals and foresight". Rather, they are quite literally programmed (i.e. "hard wired") to perform a surprisingly simple set of simple behaviors. They are born with this capability and do not have to learn it. Furthermore, their behaviors are extremely stereotyped and subject to quite a bit of essentially "random" variation. Despite this, and because there are so many of them (literally millions in some large hives), they collectively produce structures and functions that rival the most complex "artificial" factories and dwelling places designed by humans.

The point here is that "intelligence" is not being defined well at all, if it is restricted to humans and higher vertebrates, but not to insect societies. Each insect is definitely not "intelligent" (any more than each of our individual cells is), but collectively both the insect societies and our multicellular selves are intelligent. "Intelligence" is therefore an emergent property, rather than a pre-existing attribute. And evolution, of course, is all about emergent properties.

One of the points I tried to make earlier is that using human "intelligence" as a yardstick for intelligence in general is like using a Cray XMT as your yardstick for evaluating the "intelligence" of an abacus. In virtually every discussion I have read about "intelligence" at ID blogs, there seems to be an unspoken yet universal assumption that "intelligence" is an either/or phenomenon: either something is at least as intelligent as a human (or the Intelligent Designer aka God) or it isn't intelligent at all.

How "intelligent" a virus like the lambda bacteriophage? If "intelligence" is to be a useful (not to mention empirically measurable) phenomenon, it seems to me that it should fall somewhere along a spectrum, from the "intelligence" manifested by simple viruses up through the "intelligence" manifested by complex animal societies such as ours.

The latter point - that "intelligence" must somehow be massively multiplied as the result of social/collective interactions - is also non-trivial. As I pointed out earlier, an individual termite is extraordinarily "stupid", especially by human standards. Indeed, taken out of their social contexts, the behaviors of most social organisms seem pointless and almost random. However, what appear to be pointless and virtually random behaviors when viewed at the individual level become extraordinarily complex and "hyper-intelligent" when one moves up in organizational levels in animal societies.

How "intelligent" would each of us be, if we were forced to live in complete isolation from all other humans? If we were forced to do so from birth, our "intelligence" would be so limited as to result in almost instant death. Ergo, if one uses "able to live independently" as one's criterion for "intelligence", one would have to conclude that oak trees are immensely more intelligent than humans.

In my opinion, until ID theory comes to grips with the concept of "intelligence" in such a way as to make it both empirically verifiable and quantifiable, ID "theory" will continue to be not much more than unsupported speculation.

As a first approach to an operational definition of intelligence, consider whether learning is a necessary component of intelligence. Several commentators have strongly implied that this is the case. That is, the more an entity is capable of "learning", the more intelligent it is.

However, using the ability to learn as a criterion for intelligence is fraught with difficulties. For example, termites do not learn to build termite mounds, yet virtually everyone in this thread has agreed that mound-building behavior in termites indicates that termites (at least as a group) are indeed intelligent. Ergo, it is quite clear that an entity that is utterly incapable of "learning" can still qualify as being highly "intelligent".

This would also apply to some ID supporter's assertion that the Intelligent Designer is the God of the Abrahamic religions. This entity is universally recognized as being a "4-O deity": that is, He is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. However, this last quality also strongly implies that the ID/God does not learn from His actions, as to do so would be directly contradictory with His being forever omniscient (i.e. from the beginning to the end of time, assuming that time does indeed end). Ergo, the ability to learn is quite clearly not a criterion for determining intelligence, if one assumes that the Intelligent Designer of ID theory is the God of the Abrahamic religions.

If one is familiar with so-called "expert systems" in computing, the same would be the case. Expert systems (ESs) do not "learn" to do anything in the sense that animals with "wet" minds do. On the contrary, an ES performs a complex (sometimes recursive) calculation using data embedded in one or more "truth tables", producing a calculated outcome. This outcome is sometimes hedged with statistical error calculations, but it is a calculated (i.e. not learned) outcome nonetheless. While the final calculation produced by an ES can be modified, this happens only when the values in the "truth tables" are modified. Otherwise, the outcome is simply a calculation. Ergo, expert systems do not actually "learn" anything, at least in the same way that animals (and some other living organisms) do.

So, I believe that it is fair to conclude that the ability to "learn" is quite clearly not a necessary criterion for intelligence. Some highly intelligent entities (such as termite colonies and the God of Abraham) are clearly incapable of true "learning". Conversely, some very unintelligent entities, such as bacteria, are nonetheless capable of changing their behavior over time in response to changes in their environment (the standard operational definition of "learning" in the cognitive sciences).

CONCLUSION: Intelligence is fundamentally unrelated to the ability to learn.

Which brings us back once again to the fundamental question: what is "intelligence", how can it be observed, and can it be quantified in any way? If not, then ID is quite literally a "science" without an empirically definable subject, and therefore a pointless exercise in mental masturbation.

One might also be tempted to define "intelligence" as "adaptability". That is, an "intelligent" entity has the ability to adapt its behavior (and, presumably, its underlying cognitive machinery by means of which its behavior is generated and regulated) in response to changes in its environment. However, this presents two serious problems to an ID supporter:

1) "Adaptability" is what natural selection is all about. Why posit the existence of an "intelligent" entity that is capable of "adapting" to changes in the environment, when this is precisely what natural selection is supposed to be able to do?

2) Since ID is supposed to be a theory that explains adaptation, then saying that the Intelligent Designer (i.e. the entity that moulds adaptations) is adaptable is essentially defining "intelligence" via constructing a tautology:

• "intelligence" = "ability to produce adaptations"

• "intelligent design" = the process by which adaptations are created

Ergo, "intelligent design" reduces to "adaptability producing adaptations".

This is what is sometimes referred to in logic as the "dormative principle" argument, from Moliere's "The Imaginary invalid". When asked how or why opium produces sleep, the learned doctor replies "because it contains a 'dormative principle'"; that is, it causes sleep because it contains a material that causes sleep. In the same way, defining "intelligence" as "the ability to adapt to changes in the environment" (including changes that have not yet happened, i.e. foresight) reduces to "design that is 'adaptable' because it is 'adaptable'".

Where does this leave us in a search for an empirically quantifiable definition of "intelligence"? And if the answer is, "nowhere", then where does this leave "intelligent design"?

In the same line of argument, one clearly cannot define "intelligence" as "that principle/process/quality by which complex specified information is produced". To do so would once more be arguing via tautology:

Question: What produces "complex specified information"?

Answer: Intelligence.

Question: What is "intelligence"?

Answer: That principle/process/quality that produces complex specified information.

Ergo, "the principle/process/quality that produces complex specified information" is what produces "complex specified information".

Again, a pointless exercise in semantic gymnastics.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

How Not To Fight A "Culture War"

There has been an interesting and often heated discussion about "methodological naturalism" taking place at Uncommon Descent. After more than 350 comments, the dispute about what "methodological naturalism" was, and how long scientists have been practicing it was resolved in the way that most such discussions are resolved: with the participants agreeing to disagree.

I think it would be interesting for both sides in the debate around methodological naturalism (MN) to consider why this term has become so widely used in recent times. For the sake of argument, let us assume that the entire concept of MN only became "solidified" following Paul de Vries' coinage of the term in 1983. Also for the sake of argument, let us concede that prior to that time the use of "non-natural" assumptions was indeed legitimate for at least inspiring scientific research (as, indeed, history shows us was clearly the case). Let us then further assume that the current application of MN does indeed exclude any reference to "non-natural causes", either in the design of experimental tests of hypotheses or in their interpretation.

One might then reasonably ask, "What happened in the early 1980s that prompted such a dramatic shift in the perception of scientists, so dramatic that it led most scientists to reject what had previously been allowable: that is, the use of "non-natural" hypotheses as an inspiration for scientific research (if not necessarily also in the interpretation of the results of such research)?

I believe that if one examines what was happening the early 1980s vis-a-vis evolutionary biology, the answer to this question is obvious: the rise of "scientific creationism" (especially of the "young Earth" variety) as a political force in the U.S., culminating in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)'s decision in Edwards v. Aguillard (
482 U.S. 578) in 1987. During the 1960s, American science was promoted very vigorously, both by the U.S. government and by scientists themselves, as a reaction to scientific advances by the Soviet Union (particularly the launching of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite). Part of this promotion involved the formulation of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) protocol and its associated textbooks (the "blue", "green", and "yellow" versions). All three versions stressed evolutionary theory as providing a foundation for the biological sciences. This was virtually the first time since 1925 (and the conviction of John T. Scopes for having violated Tennessee's Butler Act by teaching evolution in a public school classroom) that evolutionary theory had been so prominently featured in biology textbooks that were widely promoted in the American public school system.

This caused an immediate negative reaction among American evangelical Christian groups. Legislative bans on the teaching of evolution similar to the Butler Act were either reinstated or promoted in several states. At the same time, Henry Morris and other "scientific creationists" founded and promoted the "scientific creationism" movement, which sought to provide scientific evidence for their version of "young Earth creationism" (YEC). Not much actual science was done by these self-described YECs, but strenuous political efforts were undertaken to have their YEC reinterpretations of existing scientific information incorporated into public school curricula in several states (most notably Arkansas and Louisiana).

In reaction to these efforts by YECs, the scientific community partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and allied organizations to bring such efforts to the attention of the SCOTUS, with the intention of having them outlawed as violating the first amendment to the US constitution. These efforts were ultimately successful, as both laws banning evolution from public school science classes and the attempts to insert YEC in public school science classes were struck down as unconstitutional by the SCOTUS. These events, and not the subsequent rise of Intelligent Design (ID), are the context within which the adoption of MN by the scientific community in the 1980s can most effectively be viewed.

From my interactions with them, I have found that some ID supporters are very strongly in sympathy with the YECs, and view ID as a way of getting their version of YEC back in the public schools. This was clearly the case in the Dover Area school board's 2005 attempt to provide students with alternative biology textbooks incorporating ID, as shown by the sworn testimony by several of the members of that school board and other members of the board who were present at meetings at which this plan was discussed and approved.

However, in my interactions with other ID supporters (and especially the members of the Cornell IDEA Club and some commentators at Uncommon Descent), I have come to understand that a significant fraction of ID supporters do not accept that YEC is a legitimate empirical science, nor support it's incorporation in public school science curricula.

The dispute that has occurred in this thread (and similar recent disputes elsewhere) seem to me to be examples of people "fighting the last war" rather than dealing with the situation as it exists today. ID supporters who are not YECs need to understand that most evolutionary biologists lump the two together, partly because of the behavior of the Dover Area school board and similar, more local situations in which YECs have persisted in pushing their views into the public schools. At the same time, evolutionary biologists and their political supporters need to understand that there is no necessary connection between YEC and ID, nor are they united in their conviction that YEC and ID must be incorporated into the public school curriculum today.

A recognition of the political contexts within which both evolutionary biologists and Intelligent Design supporters have come to their positions, and what these contexts imply about the value of possible further actions would be valuable for both sides in this debate. I have had many ID supporters say privately to me that Dover was a disaster for ID, and especially for its quest to be accepted as a legitimate empirical science. I have also had many evolutionary biologists express to me their opinion that there is essentially no difference between YEC and ID, a viewpoint that I have learned through experience is clearly in error.

Ergo, I have concluded that the most effective way to move forward in this debate is the way I have been conducting it since the mid-1990s. That is, to invite supporters of both sides of the debate to make presentations in my evolution courses and seminars at Cornell and to conduct such debates in public forums such as this website. Ironically, I find this venue to be much more congenial to such debates than places like AtBC, in which character assassination is the order of the day, rather than the last resort of people who are either confused about their own position or uncertain about its logical force.

And so, I recommend that all participants in this debate avoid name-calling and ad hominem arguments. For each committed commentator on both sides of this issue, there are many thousands of quiet observers who are trying to come to their own conclusions about the issues being debated. While mud-slinging is fun, it's fun in the same way that smoking or drinking heavily is fun; it provides short-term personal gratification, but in the long term it undermines everything one is trying to accomplish.

I believe that clarity should be our goal, not necessarily agreement. If we come to clarity about our positions and agree to disagree, then we have accomplished a great deal more than we would have accomplished if our goal was simply to attack our opponents' characters or to question their personal motives. Going forward I will do my best to pursue this course of action, and recommend that all who genuinely wish to come to clarity on these issues and, by doing so, help the "silent watchers" of this forum to do so as well, treat each other as colleagues (in the "collegiate" sense of that word) in their pursuit of what they perceive to be the truth, rather than as enemies in a culture war.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen