Eugenie C. Scott
The Big Tent and the Camel's Nose 
Metaviews 008. 2001.0212. 
Approximately 2052 words. 

In the essay below, Eugenie Scott replies to William Dembski (see Metaviews 006). On philosophical grounds, Scott argues that "One cannot use natural
processes to hold constant the actions of supernatural forces; hence it is impossible to test (by naturalistic methodology) supernatural explanations." 
Scott points out that Dembski and other proponents of Intelligent Design are extremely vague about acknowledging the observed pattern of evolution (by
whatever process). Scott writes that "The reason ID proponents are so vague about an actual picture of what happened is that they strive to include YECs,
progressive creationists (PCs), and theistic evolutionists (TEs) among their theorists and supporters (though the TE gang must feel rather uncomfortable,
Dembski himself having proclaimed that OID is no friend of theistic evolution" (Dembski, 1995). This is not just a big tent; it is one bulging with people who
must be eying one another warily." Scott notes that much of this effort is focused on influencing the curriculum in K-12 schools, but it is not the least
bit clear what exactly Dembski et. al. would have us teach, say about the age of the Earth or the observed patterns of evolution from common descent (again
leaving aside the question of how this evolution happens). Accordingly I have titled this essay, "The Big Tent and the Camel's Nose."
-- Billy Grassie =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 


From: "Eugenie C. Scott" <scott@ncseweb.org> 
Subject: The Big Tent and the Camelšs Nose 

William Dembski has responded to my January 18 Tom Jukes Memorial Lecture at UC
Berkeley. Others are responding on META and elsewhere to the focus of his
essay, whether natural selection is testable, and I shall not do so here. I
should, however comment on views attributed to me. I wasn't really dealing with
the testability of ID, though that is the impression one might get from
Dembski's essay. In this public lecture, I discussed both traditional creation
science as well as Neocreationism, and compared them. I talked about Behe's
irreducible complexity idea, and Dembski's Design Inference, and illustrated
religious motivation for fighting evolution. I am not especially concerned with
whether ID is testable. I look at the testability of ID the same way I look at
the testability of traditional Young Earth Creationism (YEC): YEC can make
empirically or logically or statistically testable statements (the Earth was
covered by a body of water, all living things are descended from creatures that
came off a boat) but its foundational claim that everything came into being
suddenly in its present form through the efforts of a supernatural creator is
not a scientifically testable claim. Išll let theologians argue over whether
Special Creationism is good theology, but evoking omnipotent supernatural causes
puts one smack out of the realm of science, protestations of the validity of
"theistic science" notwithstanding. One cannot use natural processes to hold
constant the actions of supernatural forces; hence it is impossible to test (by
naturalistic methodology) supernatural explanations (Scott, 1998).

Whether a supernatural force does or does not act is thus outside of what
science can tell us. Similarly, ID can make empirically or logically or
statistically testable claims (that certain structures are irreducibly complex;
by using probability arguments like the "design filter" one can detect design)
but the foundational claim that a supernatural "intelligence" is behind it all
is not a scientifically testable statement. (And please, let's be grownups here:
we're not talking about a disembodied, vague "intelligence" that *might* be
material, we're talking about God, an intelligent agent that can do things that,
according to ID, mortals and natural processes like natural selection cannot. 
Not for nothing does Dembski say that ID is the bridge between science and
theology.) In my talk, I wasnšt deploring the untestability of ID *per se* but
the fact that its proponents donšt present testable models. I was referring to
the fact that ID proponents don't present a model *at all* in the sense of
saying what happened when. At least YEC presents a view of "what happens": the
universe appeared within thousands of years ago, at one time, in its present
form, living things are descended from specially created "kinds" from which they
have not varied except in trivial ways, there was a universal flood that
produced the modern geological features, and humans are specially created apart
from all other forms. So what happened in the ID model? I said (and have said
repeatedly) that the message of ID is "evolution is bad science", without
providing an alternative view of the history of the universe. This is not
trivial: in books by Philip Johnson as well as in Jonathan Wells' new *Icons of
Evolution* teachers are told that they should be teaching students about how
evolution is a weak, unsubstantiated "theory in crisis", to use former
antievolutionist Michael Denton's phrase. The theories of astronomical,
geological and biological evolution attempt to explain evidence demonstrating
that the universe has been around for a long time, and has gradually unfolded
from a different form to its present form. There are
lots of details in there, about when and how things happened: when our galaxy
formed, when other galaxies formed, when Earth formed and out of what matter,
when warthogs or whortleberries or liverworts came to resemble their present
forms, and on. Something happened, and we're trying to figure out what, and
trying to figure out the mechanisms that brought it about. ID tells us that
evolution didn't happen (what else is one supposed to take away from *Icons of
Evolution*?) but it doesn't tell us what *did*. Unless ID proponents can come up
with an actual model of "what happened", all they have is a sterile
antievolutionism that adds little to YEC beyond the specific ideas of
irreducible complexity and the design filter. The reason ID proponents are so
vague about an actual picture of what happened is that they strive to include
YECs, progressive creationists (PCs), and theistic evolutionists (TEs) among
their theorists and supporters (though the TE gang must feel rather
uncomfortable, Dembski himself having proclaimed that "ID is no friend of
theistic evolution" (Dembski, 1995). This is not just a big tent; it is one
bulging with people who must be eying one another warily. Phil Johnson may want
everyone to just be nice for the time being until evolution is vanquished, and
then they can work out their disagreements, but if you think evolutionists
squabble, wait until you see what happens when the ID folks have to sort out
their differences. As Ronald Numbers and Kelly Smith independently urged at last
summer's "Design and Its Critics" conference, if ID is going to attain any level
of scholarly respectability, its proponents are going to have to distinguish
their model from the discredited, unscientific YEC model, even if that means
losing the support of biblical literalist Christians. For aspiring scholarly
movements, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Given my odd line of work,
I'm concerned with practical issues such as what teachers are being told to do,
and what effect this will have on American education. As near as I can tell,
teachers are being encouraged to teach students that evolution didn't happen,
and that if it did, that natural selection isn't the cause of it, and that in
any event we have to leave room for the direct actions of a Creator, and all
this is still called science. But to keep all the ID factions quiet, an actual
picture of what happened, which is what evolution is trying to explain and what
ID has to explain, is never mentioned. What should teachers teach? 

Apparently, judging from *Icons of Evolution*, they should teach the familiar
old YEC saws about the weaknesses of evolution. Evolution is bad science, they
say. So to my way of thinking, ID doesn't rise above familiar antievolutionism,
though it may be served up in probability theory and information theory with a
side order of biochemistry, but there is no coherent ID model of what happened
for teachers to actually teach. This invites the question of what, according to
the proponents of ID, should teachers teach about the following issues? 

1) Is the universe a few thousand years old or billions? Most ID proponents
will if forced, uncomfortably confess that they accept an ancient age of the
earth, but they are quick to dismiss the question as unimportant, presumably to
keep the YECs in the antievolution tent. But should a teacher teach that the
earth is millions or thousands of years old? You can't have it both ways if you
are proposing a K-12 curriculum. What is the ID model? What happened? 

2) Is the geological column which shows a succession of species through time,
"real' or an artifact? At least the YECs present a model of what happened: the
arrangement of species in the geological column is a result of sorting by Noah's
flood, rather than their appearance at different times. Does ID accept the
geological column as "real"? This is a simple thing to agree to: it is still
possible to argue (as Jonathan Wells does) that the arrangement of species
through time doesn't represent descent with modification, but Dembski et al. are
going to have to come clean as to what this means. Minimally, it means the
Special Creationists are wrong, but it also requires the PCs and the TEs to
fight it out as to whether the succession of species through time represents
separate creations or a genealogical pattern of related species. 

3) Did living things descend with modification from common ancestors? This is
what biological evolution is all about, and where the ID big tent starts showing
the strain of trying to stretch over incompatible views. How is ID going to
accommodate both Theistic Evolutionist Michael Behe and Special Creationist Paul
Nelson? More important, what do proponents of ID expect teachers to teach? What
happened? I think I know the answer. Teachers are supposed to teach that
evolution didn't happen. Of course, if they did, they would be teaching a view
that is well outside the scientific mainstream, and be doing their students no
favors. I like to remind people that evolution is taught matter-of-factly at
every solid university in the nation, including Brigham Young, Notre Dame, and
Baylor. But more importantly for our purposes here, ID does not present a
coherent model of "what happened", making it impossible for teachers to present
ID as an alternative to evolution, as proponents seek. Now, maybe Dembski or
other ID proponents will tell me that they are not trying to influence the K-12
curriculum, that they are merely trying to build a scholarly movement at the
university or intellectual level, trusting that eventually ID will be validated
and like other intellectual movements, it will trickle down to the K-12 level.
If Dembski had attended my talk, he would have heard me advocate exactly this
strategy. I don't think ID will enter the academic mainstream, but if it does,
then obviously it will eventually be taught in high school. But I don't think
ID proponents are willing to wait until they get this validation: Jonathan
Wells, whose book provides disclaimers to be copied and placed in K-12
textbooks, is obviously concerned primarily with the K-12 curriculum; Philip
Johnson's *Defeating Darwinism*
is explicitly aimed at high school students; and CRSC's Steven Meyer is an
author of a substantial "Afterward" to teachers in the ID high school textbook,
*Of Pandas and People*. Bruce Gordon, presently interim director of The Baylor
Science and Religion Project, has correctly noted, : ID "has been prematurely
drawn into discussions of public science education, where it has no business
making an appearance without broad recognition from the scientific community
that it is making a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of the natural
world" (Gordon, 2001). So, what happened, Bill? Will you go beyond "evolution is
bad science" to give us an actual model of what happened?

References:

Dembski, William 1995 What every theologian should know about creation,
evolution, and design. Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Transactions 3(2):3. 

Dembski, William. 2001. Is Intelligent Design Testable? A Reply to Eugenie
Scott. META 004. 2001.01.24. 

Scott, Eugenie C. 1998 Two kinds of materialism. *Free Inquiry*, Spring, 1998, p. 20. 

I thank Glenn Branch for useful comments. 

Eugenie C. Scott, Ph.D. Executive Director National Center for Science
Education, Inc. 925 Kearney St. El Cerrito, CA 94530-2810 510-526-1674
FAX: 510-526-1675 800-290-6006 scott@ncseweb.org http://www.ncseweb.org
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