Neanderthals At It Again

H.L. Mencken’s final report from the famous Scopes trial in Dayton Tennessee comes roaring down to us after 80 years as sharply edged as ever:

Let no one mistake [the trial] for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details.  It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience.  Tennessee, challenging him too timorously and too late, now sees its courts converted into camp meetings and its Bill of Rights made a mock of by sworn officers of the law.  There are other states that had better look to their arsenals before the Hun is at their gates.

Could he have foreseen the recent Pennsylvania case contesting evolution in terms Scopes would find unchanged from how Clarence Darrow argued for him way back then? Mencken anticipated even more in an earlier Nation column: “No principle is at stake at Dayton save the principle that school teachers, like plumbers, should stick to the job that is set before them, and not go roving around the house, breaking windows, raiding the cellar, and demoralizing children.”  The continuity in both of his observations on human nature was that the Neanderthals were in charge of the law and that none of those involved had the sense to stick to what they actually knew when scientific and intellectual matters were at hand.

The more recent decision was issued by a U.S. District Court Judge with the impressive moniker of John E. Jones III in a case from the equally inconspicuous Dover, PA. Judge Jones the Third could have avoided making a fool of himself by either declaring the case moot—the school board that required a statement in their biology textbook claiming evolution was only a theory rather than a fact and that “intelligent design” was an alternative explanation to Charles Darwin’s, had been defeated in the prior election—or even ruled that the board decision was biased by religious prejudice. But the new school board had already announced it would appeal only if it lost the case so The Third knew he would not be reviewed by higher court authority and was presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to demonstrate upon a world stage his intellectual and scientific superiority to the boobs.

The distinguished member of the Schuylkill County Bar, educated to the highest levels as a Bachelor of Arts at Dickinson College and, comfortably again, at its School of Law let hubris unleash his pen and decided not a mere case of law but chose to define biology, science and rationality itself, Constitutionally, legally, once and for all, for all time. All he proved, and that rather conclusively, is we have learned absolutely nothing over these fourscore years.

What gives Batchelor Jones his superior powers? He admits he must deal with “complex if not obtuse” matters but claims that “after a six-week trial that spanned 21 days…no other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than are we to traipse into this controversial area.” No kidding, he did say traipse and it all came to him over the span of an incredible six weeks! After all, his scientific expertise prior to the Federal court was as The Honorable Chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board and before that as Solicitor of the great metropolis of Pottstown, PA, surely ranking favorably with the pallid scientific background of Mencken’s memorable Dr. Crabbes.

The 21-day wonder’s first target was the comparatively easy subject of biology. He acknowledged that some serious scientists had found problems with evolution citing gaps in the record and life-forms that did not seem to evolve from lower bodies. But “Just because scientists cannot explain today how biological systems evolved does not mean that they cannot and will not be able to explain them tomorrow.” Certainly, this is true but, while Judge Jones thinks this disposes of the case, his is just as clearly a belief based upon faith rather than upon the empirical science he claims is the only standard for an idea’s worth. While any scientific theory deserves the liberality of this assumption, it is clearly based on cosmology rather than empirical observation.

In evaluating the alternative intelligent design theory favored by the first school board, however, the Judge uses a more fundamentalist standard. “Intelligent design is a religious view,” he declares, “a mere re-labeling of creationism and not a scientific theory. It is an extension of the Fundamentalists’ view that one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution.” This is in spite of the fact that even most Christians do not view Genesis literally in every regard and that its largest denomination, the Catholic Church, accepts evolution as a likely part of the explanation rather than either/or. Even the consensus of evolutionary science has devised the cosmological idea of the Big Bang as part of its explanation, which bang by definition is itself not evolutionary but an abrupt bang.

Judge Jones does not hit full stride until he defines science itself. “Science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena,” opining that the scientific revolution was explicitly about the rejection of “revelation” in favor of empirical evidence. This certainly would have been a revelation to the devout Isaac Newton, the--or one of the--men normally recognized as the leader of that revolution, or to Brahe, Copernicus, Kepler, Liebniz, Napier or most of the rest of the pioneers. But the Judge moves bravely on: “science has been a discipline in which testability rather than any ecclesiastical authority or philosophical coherence has been the measure of a scientific idea’s worth,” a discipline that avoids any search for “meaning” or “purpose,” although he does mention the need for logic as a “tool” of science and for “ground rules,” although he limits these by claiming “the essential ground rules” are those that “limit science to testable, natural explanations.”

The Judge’s admirers are correct to note he has given a “clear definition of science” and even that his is “a passionate peon to science.” Yet, to anyone even vaguely familiar with philosophy of science, it obviously is a most particular definition of science, one called logical positivism, one that was the dominant view in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is still the majority view of the establishment institutions like the National Academy of Science relied upon so much by Judge Jones, which in his case plays the role of the Holy Office experts against Galileo (who also was a devout believer). But this particular definition has been seriously challenged and not only by religionists. Take the philosopher Sir Karl Popper, who was not religious and not a believer in God. One could have instead referenced Albert Einstein but he did believe in God. Popper wrote his Logic of Scientific Discovery in mid 20th Century to critique positivism from a strictly logical point of view.

The key to understanding the Judge’s partisan approach to science is his use of “testability.” Popper was the first to rigorously argue that science does not test theories but attempts to falsify theories. Testing to prove theories is logically impossible for a reason the Judge inadvertently acknowledged. New evidence can always falsify a theory but can never confirm one since new evidence can always overturn the earlier findings. No theory is ever proven but is always open to dispute. Logically, this must include evolution. Otherwise, it truly is a religious belief. The Judge is also on shaky ground in claiming that science is limited to natural causes to explain natural phenomena. Even he recognized the need for logic, which even positivists like A.J. Ayer, recognized was not material but analytic. More importantly, Popper claimed that all science rests on cosmology which defines the point of view, the motivation, the methodology and the types of problems scientists find worthy of study and are not material themselves.

Popper may be wrong but the Judge does not seem aware there is a controversy. The cosmology or cosmologies that structure science are not testable--logic is not, mathematics is not, the scientific method is not. These need to be internally consistent but they cannot be tested empirically. Big Bang is itself one of these propositions. Interestingly, Big Bang was fiercely rejected by the leading evolutionists of the 1960s for the same reason intelligent design is today. Such a belief can leave a place for God outside the theory as the cause of the bang. But Big Bang proved irresistible to scientists as part of a more rational explanation and most evolutionists rely upon it today.

Again, in the 1970s, it became increasingly impossible to ignore the scientific evidence that the fittest did not always survive. The fossil record showed innumerable species that died out that seemed more fit than those that survived. Besides “survival of the fittest” sounded too much like Hitler. So evolutionists were forced to recognize outside catastrophic events such as meteors that overruled evolution and killed off normally superior species. Yet, again, if some events outside evolution as Darwin used the term were recognized the fear from some scientists was that there was room for the unwashed to introduce God as an outside creative event.

The big secret is that no one follows pure Darwinian evolution today except the ignorant who have no idea what scientists actually believe. Both Big Bang (interesting capitalization) and catastrophism would be heresy to Darwin and were violently rejected by his followers when these concepts were first introduced. They are a normal part of biology today and are taught in most textbooks. Intelligent design may be more of the same in the future. Who knows? What is clear is that the keepers of the scientific tablets will continue to reject any additions to the dogma that seem to weaken its myths—especially for those for whom Darwinian evolution has become a metaphysic--and the Judge Jones of the world will continue to follow convention and the mob and assist them. But reality has a way of intruding and establishments are not always successful, especially over the long run.

What is most interesting is that the roles in the earlier and current controversies have been almost completely reversed. Like Tennessee, Pennsylvania passed a law requiring adherence to the current orthodoxy, creationism in the twenties but evolution today. It is important to note that the earlier Dover school board was trying to skirt a state law that forced the orthodox view and that when popular emotion was whipped up by the orthodoxy the mob threw out the intelligent designers, not the evolutionists as earlier in Tennessee. In both cases, the popular theory was made into law and forced upon a minority that held an alternative view. In both cases, the law is made the ass, manipulated to favor the majority public position over the minority one.

As in the past, the more rational position will probably prevail over the longer term. What is certain is that intelligent design is not simply a religious dogma, as it is supported by non-religionists—in fact, we printed such a defense here by William Daley (http://acuf.org/issues/issue45/051005med.asp)--and several of these appeared before Judge Jones even though he chose to ignore them. As far as the minority is concerned, there is more than one way to skin a cat. If convinced of the merits of the case, one way forward for intelligent designers is for local school boards to offer philosophy of science courses to discuss the cosmological issues as a way to circumvent the heavy hand of the state and the courts.

Donald Devine, the editor, taught philosophy of science at the University of Maryland for 14 years and is a professor of Western Civilization at Bellevue University.

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