Is Leaving Room for God in Evolution Gouging Science?

Scientists, all of them, understand that the theory of evolution includes a couple of key elements—among others, that it be a unsupervised and “mindless” process. This is key even to the stability of the theory, why it makes sense. It is something that should be emphasized. If someone had a hand in the thing, guided it along, evolution wouldn’t have happened like it happened. Evolution doesn’t need help is the thing. It doesn’t have gaps, so it doesn’t need a god-of-the-gaps to help it along. Or, more accurately, evolution is full of gaps and misfires and is cruel and wasteful.

God would have to be not just imperfect to design such a thing, but intentionally, well. . . wrong.

As of 1995, the definition of evolution according to the National Association of Biology Teachers, accordingly, said (my bolding):

The diversity of life on earth is the result of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.

Eugenie C. Scott, director of the National Center of Science Education wrote a letter in 2008 discussing the massive push-back from Christian fundamentalists and demands to drop the words “unsupervised” and “impersonal,” which she ultimately and surprisingly agreed with. The words were dropped in 1998.

Her argument in capsule looks a bit like this: consider that science being science necessarily excludes a supernatural god in its discussion, so pulling the words shouldn’t make much difference anyway. And, science being science, it isn’t in a position to comment on god, and those two words arguably do by negation.

Scott says:

. . . for the separation of methodological from philosophical materialism for logical reasons, and for reasons based on the philosophy of science. It is also possible to argue from a strategic standpoint. Living as we do in a society in which only a small percentage of our fellow citizens are nontheists, we who support the teaching of evolution in the public schools should avoid the creationist’s position of forcing a choice between God and Darwin.

So science is to be a method, and not a philosophy. Making science something to believe in is, crudely, letting “them” win. Science isn’t something to believe in, it’s something to use because it works. As fundamentalists, particularly in America and on both sides, dig deeper in and lob bigger and bigger semantic bombs, it’s a pretty scary thought that science could become overwhelmed by philosophical and, then, fundamentalist debate.

Scott continues:

I want people to understand and accept the science of evolution; whether or not someone builds from this science a philosophical system that parallels mine is logically and strategically independent. An ideology drawn from science is not the same as science itself.

But, on the other hand, we live in a different, more acidic and even more dug-in world than 1998. Science’s many detractors and agents of ignorance are going for the throat. (Remember in New Mexico the push for teachers to be able to teach creationism and against evolution, based on all the not-science they like.) If “they” have made science a philosophy, don’t we need to defend it as such? Like, before those methods that make science science lose their own hallowed space?

A post at whyevolutionistrue goes much much further than Scott’s pragmatic, and rhetorical, considerations allow:

In my classes, however, I still characterize evolution and selection as processes lacking mind, purpose, or supervision. Why? Because, as far as we can see, that's the truth. Evolution and selection operate precisely as you'd expect them to if they were not designed by, or steered by, a deity—especially one who is omnipotent and benevolent. And, more important, the completely material nature of selection is of great historical and intellectual importance. After all, Darwin's greatest achievement was the explanation of organismal "design" by a completely naturalistic process, replacing the mindful, purposeful, and god-directed theory that preceded it. That was a revolution in human thought, and students should know about it. (This achievement is also why Dawkins claimed, in The Blind Watchmaker, that "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Perhaps Darwin did not mandate that evolution ineluctably proves the absence of God, but he kicked out the last prop supporting the action of a deity in nature.)

And further:

Evolution and selection lack any sign of divine guidance. Earlier teleological theories based on divine or spiritual guidance, such as orthogenesis, have fallen by the wayside. Natural selection is a cruel and wasteful process. 99% of the species that ever lived went extinct without leaving descendants. There is no sign that evolution always goes in a fixed direction. Do primates always get bigger brains? There is some suggestion that orangutan populations evolved smaller ones. Fleas lost their wings; tapeworms lost nearly everything when evolving a parasitic lifestyle. There is no sign that the goal of evolution was Homo sapiens (if that were true, why the virtual extinction of Neandertals or the robust australopithecines)?

I guess the problem between Scott and the poster quoted above becomes that god is necessarily outside of the purview of science—but what if it isn’t?

Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv