Derbyshire take-down

Mark Shea links to an effective take-down of John Derbyshire in NRO.

Mr. Derbyshire has trouble accepting the relevance of religion to reality. Specifically, he has trouble believing God is truth and therefore of the ultimate relevance when addressing the real world. It's no surprise, then, that he's an opponent of Intelligent Design. Of course, he says he objects to the intermingling of science and religion. Well, that would be fine, if so many supporters of Darwinian evolution were content to consider it only a science. The trouble is, far too many don't. Instead, they utilize this scientific theory as an existential philosophy--and use it to contradict the truth claims of religion in general. Mr. Derbyshire can't seriously deny this. Therefore, his defense, as summarized by Jonathan Witt here, is weak

His argument rests on this statement: "Darwinism is the essential foundation for all of modern biology and genomics, and offers a convincing explanation for all the phenomena we can observe in the life sciences."

Mr. Witt notes that Mr. Derbyshire "begs the question" by defining Darwinism as the "essential foundation for all modern biology" and "offers convincing evidence for all the phenomena we can observe in the life sciences." He then observes the work of Philip Skell, who refutes Mr. Derbyshire's assertions:

As for the claim that Darwinism is the cornerstone for all of modern biology, National Academy of Sciences member Philip S. Skell investigated the claim, and reports his results in the latest issue of The Scientist. He writes:

My own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.

I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.

So much for Darwinism's influential role in the work of modern biologists.

Either Darwinism is a science or a philosophy. If it's a science, then it's merits and flaws should be evaluated and taught as such in a classroom. Since Darwinism may not properly address all observed phenomena, then other theories that may should also be taught in the classroom. ID may qualify as one of those theories. Therefore, Mr. Derbyshire's vaucous claims for Darwinism's exclusive pride of place in science curriculae falls short.

If Darwinism is a philosophy, then it has no more place being taught in a science classroom than Romanticism in English and American literature, Rationalism and Enlightenment philosophy in History or other metaphysics. Since it is being taught in the science classroom, then other philosophies deserve a place at the table as well. So if ID is only a philosophy, as some insist, then it ought to be taught along side the philosophy de joure current in the science classroom. Once again, Mr Derbyshire's insistence that Darwinism stand alone sounds hollow.

In the end, the emperor wears no clothes. Darwinism's apologists such as Mr. Derbyshire can't conceal the fact that Darwinism satisfies Reasonable people much more as a philosophy than as a theory of science. It's metaphysical claims, however, have no right to masquerade as proven facts of science. As Mr. Shea wisely points out:

Derbyshire, at bottom, is deeply uncomfortable with this and makes all sorts of excuses for people who are, at the end of the day, saying that nature (and we) are the accidental results of a purely material and mindless process. That is a metaphysical judgment, not a scientific one.

And it's crap.

This Fool can't say it any better than that!

Update: The Paragraph Farmer has an excellent take-down of Mr. Derbyshire, too! Behold a taste:

Perhaps surprisingly for a pundit and amateur mathematician, Derbyshire misunderstands the object of his pique. He summarizes Intelligent Design as “the theory that life on earth has developed by a series of supernatural miracles performed by the God of the Christian Bible, for which it is pointless to seek any naturalistic explanation.”

One problem with that formulation is that leading proponents of Intelligent Design, whatever their personal theological views, never claim that their theory depends on Christian conceptions of God, not least because some of them are Jewish and all of them are more rigorous thinkers than Derbyshire himself. For example, mathematician/philosopher William Dembski, author of the influential 1999 book Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, is careful to distinguish between I.D. and the kind of “theistic evolution” that so bugs Derbyshire. From a theological point of view, the most that can be said for Intelligent Design is that it’s compatible with Christian belief.

Had Derbyshire actually read Dembski, or perused white papers at the web sites of think tanks like the Discovery Institute, he might be less willing to don the uniforms of the Washington Generals or New York Nationals in exhibition games against the Harlem Globetrotters. Instead, he persists in thinking of any given I.D. theorist the way Elmer Fudd thought of Bugs Bunny: as a “wascally wabbit” trying to pull one over on the rest (west?) of us.

Derbyshire's reluctance to debate the genuine research of ID sure leaves this Fool raising a brow! Why the hesitancy? If he's only defending a scientific theory--and ID is the drock he claims it is--surely discreditting the sources of ID would clearly do this. So why doesn't he?

Face it, Mr. Derbyshire. You're not defending a scientific theory. You're defending a metaphysical conviction in a scientific theory's suit. You know that such a conviction butchers the validity of the science and therefore disqualifies it from such consideration. Yet it supports your worldview, and you would like it endorsed as the descriptor par excellance of reality.

You're beginning to sound like quite the fundamentalist secularist, sir. The trouble is that religion has no place being taught as science.