At the University of Washington, Ratio Christi Responds to David Barash's Article, "God, Darwin, and My Biology Class"
Casey Luskin February 6, 2015 4:54 AM |
Many ENV readers will recall that last year University of Washington evolutionary psychologist David Barash wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled " God, Darwin, and My Biology Class." It was about how he uses his science classroom, in a state university, as a platform to attack religion. Each year, as he boasts, Dr. Barash gives a presentation to his students informing them that evolution has refuted the idea of God. He calls it "The Talk." I'm not aware of any repercussions from the university's administration, though you can be sure that a professor preaching in favor of religion in the same context would be censured.
In any case, we published several responses to Barash's piece, including a great podcast with Paul Nelson. We also noted the predictable absence of concern about Barash's repeated violation of the First Amendment from groups like the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Now there's another very appropriate response to Barash from Timothy Foutz, the Ratio Christi chapter director at the University of Washington.
Foutz points out Barash's failure to define "evolution" and explain exactly why it conflicts with religion:[Barash's] first tenet: Evolution and religion don't get along. It would be critical at this point to identify what these terms mean. Dr. Barash doesn't really define these broad terms, but he does at one point refer to religion as a "belief in an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God." Other than that he remains mostly silent about the specifics of religious belief. As to evolution, he refers to an "an entirely natural and undirected process," which he also refers to as "natural selection." But this definition is too vague. Jonathan Wells says that, strictly speaking, evolution is defined as "change over time," or "descent with modification."
As a rule, few Christians would have a problem with change over time. We see adaption all around us. Darwin's finch beak is a good example of that. But there is a huge difference between the idea that species can adapt and the belief that change over time can explain the origins of all life forms, much less the emergence of life itself. So, we wonder what Dr. Barash is "talking" about to his students. It is even more confusing when he appears to be speaking on behalf of "science." In addressing this idea, C. John Collins says: "When we are faced with statements that begin with 'Science says,' we should immediately ask 'Which science?' And then we can move on to see that 'a science' doesn't say anything; scientists do. Then we can ask, 'Which scientists? And have they reasoned so well that I should believe them?'" Precisely. If someone has the temerity to speak about another person's religious faith, it would be wise to say exactly what they mean.
Foutz shows that, despite what Barash says, science has not demolished "the argument from complexity" which points to the activity of an intelligent designer:Dr. Barash believes that the reason why the available space for religious faith has narrowed is that science has "demolished two previously potent pillars of religious faith" namely, what he calls "the argument from complexity" and "the illusion of centrality." We will look at each of these individually.
In addressing the argument from complexity, Dr. Barash makes reference to William Paley's famous watchmaker analogy: "Just as the existence of a complex structure like a watch demands the existence of a watchmaker, the existence of complex organisms requires a supernatural creator. Since Darwin, however, we have come to understand that an entirely natural and undirected process, namely random variation plus natural selection, contains all that is needed to generate extraordinary levels of non-randomness." But I think he misunderstands the argument. Neither Paley nor modern adherents of intelligent design are saying: "Look how complex things are! Only God could create that kind of complexity."
The point of this argument isn't the degree of complexity we find in organisms, but that the complexity shows the presence of design. Perhaps no one addresses this better than William Dembski: "The world contains events, objects, and structures that exhaust the explanatory resources of undirected natural causes and that can be adequately explained only by recourse to intelligent causes." Dr. Dembski coined the phrase "specified complexity." By this he means that complexity by itself is not telling, but when something forms a recognizable pattern we will want to look toward design.
For example, let's say you came into a room and found a set of Scrabble pieces spread out on a table. The pieces have a high degree of complexity, but they're not specified. But if we came into a room and saw that some Scrabble pieces spelled out "when you wish upon a star" we would know right away that an intelligent person arranged those letters. The complexity in the first instance is actually much greater than the second, but when we observe the specified complexity of the second scenario we conclude it was by design. An undirected process could never produce that kind of specificity.
There is another problem with Professor Barash's conclusion about complexity. "Extraordinary levels of non-randomness" cannot answer any questions about the origin of life. John Lennox, quoting Michael Denton, says: "the break between the nonliving and the living world represents the most dramatic and fundamental of the discontinuities of nature." Dr. Lennox offers quote after quote from well-known scientists who have no explanation for origins. Sir Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA and an atheist, says: "The origin of life seems almost to be a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going." The problem isn't just the huge gap between nonlife and life, there is also the question of information. DNA is one of the most highly complex forms of information in the universe and yet how did it originate? All information-rich systems -- computer code for example, or the Book of Kells, or the song "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road" -- are attributed to intelligence. Why would DNA be any different?
Foutz has a lot more to say in reply to Barash, and I encourage ENV readers to check out the whole response. Administrators may turn a blind eye to a professor using a state classroom to proselytize for atheism, but at least students can read an effective rebuttal from a thoughtful community member near the campus.
Image: University of Washington, by Joe Mabel (Photo by Joe Mabel) [ GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/02/at_the_universi_1093331.html
When Atheist Professors Evangelize, Freedom from Religion Foundation Is AWOL
John G. West December 2, 2014 10:13 AM |
Historian of science Emerson "Tom" McMullen at Georgia Southern University (GSU) is in hot water for criticizing Darwinian evolution in class, which critics have equated with "us[ing] class time to proselytize students and advance his personal religion, Christianity." The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), Richard Dawkins, and Jerry Coyne -- in other words, the usual anti-academic freedom bullies -- are demanding that GSU investigate and censor Professor McMullen.
Not having access to all of the relevant facts, I don't know whether Professor McMullen has crossed any lines in his teaching, or even whether I would agree with all of his criticisms of Darwinian evolution. What I do know is that his critics' assumption that objecting to Darwinian theory is tantamount to Christian advocacy is patently false. You don't need to believe in Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion to question whether undirected natural selection and random mutations can explain the major innovations in the history of life. (If you don't believe there are credible non-religious objections to modern Darwinism, I suggest you read Stephen Meyer's Darwin's Doubt.)
The FFRF's campaign against Professor McMullen reeks of hypocrisy. The FFRF expresses outrage because it seems to believe that critiquing Darwinian theory is an implicit method of preaching religion. But where is the FFRF's outrage when atheist professors explicitly misuse science to promote atheism in the classroom?
A couple of months ago in the New York Times, University of Washington evolutionary psychologist David Barash boasted of giving what he called "The Talk" to students in his classes each year. According to Barash, the purpose of "The Talk" is to persuade students that "The more we know of evolution, the more unavoidable is the conclusion that living things, including human beings, are produced by a natural, totally amoral process, with no indication of a benevolent, controlling creator." In other words, Barash actually boasts of pushing atheism in the classroom in the name of science. I have yet to see any letters or press releases from FFRF demanding an investigation of Barash. Why not?
Similarly, last year Discovery Institute provided extensive documentation of how an English professor at Ball State University has taught a course in which the sole textbook is an anthology edited by an atheist that is filled with articles attacking religion in the name of science without offering any opposing view. Contributors to the book declare that "Science Must Destroy Religion," that "There is no God; no Intelligent Designer; no higher purpose to our lives," and even that science should assume the role currently played by religion and that scientists should function as our "high priests." Again, I'm not aware of even a peep from FFRF complaining about this professor's attacks on religion in his course.
It seems to me that FFRF actually supports "proselytizing" -- so long as professors misuse science to promote atheism.
I'd like to issue a challenge to the leadership of the FFRF: If you are serious about stopping college professors from pushing their metaphysical agendas in the classroom, send a letter to the University of Washington demanding that it investigate and censor David Barash for his promotion of atheism -- and then issue a press release about it. If you do that, I am willing to send the FFRF a free copy our new Privileged Species DVD or a $10 gift card to Starbucks (FFRF's choice).
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/when_atheist_pr091621.html
A Response to David Barash’s ‘God, Darwin and My Biology Class’
 Tim Foutz is Ratio Christi’s Chapter Director at the University of Washington, where evolutionary biologist David P. Barash is a professor of psychology. The New York Times featured Barash’s article “ God, Darwin and My Biology Class” on September 27, 2014. With the annual "International Darwin Day" coming up on February 12, 2015, Foutz, who also has years of teaching experience and an M.A. in apologetics from Biola University, writes his observations on the article:
As I read "God, Darwin and My Biology Class" by David Barash, I had the picture in my mind of a kindly father sitting down with his son to explain the facts of life. The young lad has heard things that have brought uncomfortable questions into his mind. It would be irresponsible for Dad to ignore these questions and so he sits the boy down to have “The Talk.” Of course, for Dr. Barash and his students, “The Talk” is not about sex, it’s about “evolution and religion, and how they get along. More to the point, how they don’t.” In his estimation there is no real compatibility between science and faith.
In fact, Professor Barash completely rejects Stephen Jay Gould’s idea of “nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA).” Dr. Gould recognized two domains of teaching authority which he calls magisteria (from the Latin for “teacher.”) “The net of science covers the empirical universe…The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value.”1 These realms could enjoy a benign coexistence, and only rarely bump into each other, but Dr. Barash feels strongly that Gould “was misrepresenting both science and religion.”
Nevertheless, NOMA is being accepted by more and more people in the scientific community. For example, the National Center for Science Education is at least willing to give approval to the idea that God used natural selection to produce his creation. Dr. Barash would be willing to adopt that idea, but “as evolutionary science has progressed, the available space for religious faith has narrowed.” Science has demolished the pillars upon which religion stands and so, in his mind, religion is no longer a viable option.
I appreciate the fact that Professor Barash feels compelled to speak the truth to his students. As a teacher for sixteen years I occasionally had to risk making my students feel uncomfortable as I introduced a new thought to them. There is something particularly rewarding about presenting truth humbly and passionately to those who are willing to receive it. But I don’t believe Dr. Barash is telling his students the whole story. I would like to challenge the tenets of “The Talk” on four key points and then conclude with a few of my own.
The first tenet: Evolution and religion don’t get along. It would be critical at this point to identify what these terms mean. Dr. Barash doesn’t really define these broad terms, but he does at one point refer to religion as a “belief in an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God.” Other than that he remains mostly silent about the specifics of religious belief. As to evolution, he refers to an “an entirely natural and undirected process,” which he also refers to as “natural selection.” But this definition is too vague. Jonathan Wells says that, strictly speaking, evolution is defined as “change over time,” or “descent with modification.”2
As a rule, few Christians would have a problem with change over time. We see adaption all around us. Darwin’s finch beak is a good example of that. But there is a huge difference between the idea that species can adapt and the belief that change over time can explain the origins of all life forms, much less the emergence of life itself. So, we wonder what Dr. Barash is “talking” about to his students. It is even more confusing when he appears to be speaking on behalf of “science.” In addressing this idea, C. John Collins says: “When we are faced with statements that begin with ‘Science says,’ we should immediately ask ‘Which science?’ And then we can move on to see that ‘a science’ doesn’t say anything; scientists do. Then we can ask, ‘Which scientists? And have they reasoned so well that I should believe them?’3 Precisely. If someone has the temerity to speak about another person’s religious faith, it would be wise to say exactly what they mean.
Another reason why this first tenet is problematic is that it is historically ignorant. By that I mean, that until the last century or so, faith and science have had an excellent relationship. In his book For the Glory of God, sociologist Rodney Stark says: “In this chapter, I argue not only that is there no inherent conflict between religion and science, but that Christian theology was essential for the rise of science.”4 Stark argues that the Scientific Revolution happened only once: in Western Europe in the 17th century primarily because Christian theology depicted God as rational, and his creation as having a lawful structure awaiting discovery. “…The leading scientific figures in the 16th and 17th centuries overwhelmingly were devout Christians who believed it their duty to comprehend God’s handiwork.”5
The second tenet Dr. Barash affirms is: Science has eliminated the need for God. Or as he puts it: “As evolutionary science has progressed, the available space for religious faith has narrowed…” In other words, as science gains knowledge the need to resort to the God explanation grows less and less. This line of reasoning is sometimes called “The God of the Gaps.” The thought is that if science can’t explain something then it must be from God. For Dr. Barash those gaps are diminishing to the point of nonexistence or irrelevance. But this appears to me to be circular reasoning. It only makes sense if the universe is all there is and the amount of knowledge is therefore finite. In other words, Dr. Barash begins with the assumption that God doesn’t exist and uses the progress of scientific knowledge to prove that must be true. But if God does exist then there is more to this life than this life. God isn’t driving around the theater looking for a parking spot only to discover that the number of spaces is getting less and less.
This brings us to the third tenet. Dr. Barash believes that the reasons why the available space for religious faith has narrowed is that science has “demolished two previously potent pillars of religious faith” namely, what he calls “the argument from complexity” and “the illusion of centrality.” We will look at each of these individually.
In addressing the argument from complexity, Dr. Barash makes reference to William Paley’s famous watchmaker analogy: “Just as the existence of a complex structure like a watch demands the existence of a watchmaker, the existence of complex organisms requires a supernatural creator. Since Darwin, however, we have come to understand that an entirely natural and undirected process, namely random variation plus natural selection, contains all that is needed to generate extraordinary levels of non-randomness.” But I think he misunderstands the argument. Neither Paley nor modern adherents of Intelligent Design are saying: “Look how complex things are! Only God could create that kind of complexity.”
The point of this argument isn’t the degree of complexity we find in organisms, but that the complexity shows the presence of design. Perhaps no one addresses this better than William Dembski: “The world contains events, object and structures that exhaust the explanatory resources of undirected natural causes and that can be adequately explained only by recourse to intelligent causes.”6 Dr. Dembski coined the phrase “specified complexity.” By this he means that complexity by itself is not telling, but when something forms a recognizable pattern we will want to look toward design.
For example, let’s say you came into a room and found a set of Scrabble pieces spread out on a table. The pieces have a high degree of complexity, but they’re not specified. But if we came into a room and saw that some Scrabble pieces spelled out “when you wish upon a star” we would know right away that an intelligent person arranged those letters. The complexity in the first instance is actually much greater than the second, but when we observe the specified complexity of the second scenario we conclude it was by design. An undirected process could never produce that kind of specificity.
There is another problem with Professor Barash’s conclusion about complexity. “Extraordinary levels of non-randomness” cannot answer any questions about origin of life. John Lennox, quoting Michael Denton, says: “the break between the nonliving and the living world represents the most dramatic and fundamental of the discontinuities of nature.”7 Dr. Lennox offers quote after quote from well-known scientists who have no explanation for origins. Sir Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA and an atheist, says: “The origin of life seems almost to be a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”8 The problem isn’t just the huge gap between nonlife and life, there is also the question of information. DNA is one of the most highly complex forms of information in the universe and yet how did it originate? All information-rich systems computer code for example, or the Book of Kells, or the song “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road” – are attributed to intelligence. Why would DNA be any different?
Next in line, Dr. Barash covers what he calls “the illusion of centrality.” By this he means that humans are not special, not “chips off the old divine block.” In support of this position he says that there is an “underlying linkage” among species “via traceable historical connectedness.” But this seems to be a convenient fiction. It is true that the fossil record shows some aspects of progression, but as Dembski says: “Most of these progressions result from arbitrary picking and choosing among the totality of fossils…Also, such progressions invariably come from organisms with the same basic body plan…What we don’t see in the fossil record is animals with fundamentally different body plans evolving from a common ancestor.”9 Connectedness could just as easily be traced to common design as to common descent.
The fourth tenet Dr. Barash addresses is what he calls “unmerited suffering,” or what is more commonly known as “The Problem of Evil (POE).” He gives reference to free will and the Book of Job, but dismisses them with the observation that the natural world can be marvelous, but it also can produce suffering of all kinds: “suffering (like joy) is built into the nature of things.” He doesn’t really say why free will or Job are inadequate responses to suffering, or even more, how such suffering in any way shows there is no God. Even more, there is a fatal flaw in his reasoning here. He calls suffering “unmerited” but also says it’s “built into the nature of things.” How can both of these thoughts be true? If suffering is “built in” it is simply a consequence of life. It is not bad or good it just is. To call it unmerited seems to superimpose a moral framework over something that is “a natural, totally amoral process.” There is much to say in response to the POE (we don’t have the space for that now), but suffice it to say that the logic of the arguments for God’s existence10 stand alone independent of the POE. Therefore we are compelled to interpret suffering from within a theistic context.
Concluding Observation:
If Dr. Barash is correct and the empirical world is all that exists, then the universe is a closed system. That means that everything in the universe has to be explained by something else in the universe. Everything is cause and effect. There is no free will. All actions are determined by prior actions. But if that is true, then what about reason? A closed system cannot account for logical propositions, inferences and conclusions. Darwin himself understood this difficulty. He says: “But with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.”11 Prominent naturalist J.B.S. Haldane expresses similar thoughts: “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason for supposing my brain is composed of atoms.”12
Unlike the professor in the movie God’s Not Dead, to Dr. Barash’s credit he doesn’t require his students to discard their religious beliefs to pass his class. Nevertheless he is on a mission to disabuse his students of their religious beliefs. The point of “The Talk” is to show them that science has now taken center stage and if they want to hold on to a belief in a “controlling creator” they are going to have to undergo “some challenging mental gymnastic routines.” But as this paper hopefully shows, it is Dr. Barash who needs “The Talk.”
On February 12, International Darwin Day, let's pray for many eyes to be opened to God's truth instead.
FOOTNOTES:
1 From “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,” by Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, March 1997.
2 From The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.
3 From “A Peculiar Clarity.” Ch. 5, pp. 86-87 in The Magician’s Twin, ed. by John G. West
4 From For the Glory of God, p. 123.
5 Ibid.
6 From Intelligent Design, p. 107.
7 From God’s Undertaker, p. 122.
8 Ibid, p. 133.
9 From Five Questions Evolutionists Would Rather Dodge. Taken from Dembski’s website: www.designinference.com.
10 Again, space doesn’t allow for a full discussion here, but the Moral Argument, the Cosmological Argument, the Intelligent Design Argument, the Religious Argument and others all point to a Personal Creator who brought the universe into existence.
11 Quoted in The Magician’s Twin, p. 186.
12 Ibid. pp. 185-186.
Timothy Foutz graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Theatre and Speech. He attended seminary at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and subsequently Biola University for the M.A. in apologetics, and was a pastor and school teacher before joining the Ratio Christi ministry. He is married with three grown children.
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