OPEN DEBATE ON LIFE’S ORIGIN Stephen C. Meyer Department of Philosophy Whitworth College Can scientists change their minds about controversial ideas? Can they reject theories if evidence requires? That may depend upon what theories are at stake. Consider a disturbing case in Califomia involving a distinguished biology professor, Dean Kenyon. In January of 1993, Kenyon was removed from his biology classroom at San Francisco State University after a few students complained to administrators about ideas they heard in lecture. Can scientists change their minds about controversial ideas? The problem? Kenyon’s approach to teaching evolutionary theory. Professor Kenyon had grown increasingly skeptical about the textbook theory of how life first originated on Earth¾a theory he had earlier done much to advance. SFSU’s administrators have insisted that Kenyon not discuss his new views¾or the reasons for them¾with introductory biology students. Ironically, they justified their actions in the name of “science.” Controversy in San Francisco The controversy emerged in the fall of 1992 after the biology department chairman, John Hafernik, told Kenyon not to teach “creationism.” Kenyon, who included three lectures on biological origins (out of 27 total) in his introductory course, presented both standard evolutionary interpretations of biological evidence and difficulties with those interpretations. He also discussed philosophical controversies raised by the issue and his own view that living systems display evidence of “intelligent design,” a view not incompatible with some evolutionary thinking. Hafernik accused Kenyon of teaching biblical creationism and ordered him to stop. Kenyon asked for clarification. He wrote the Dean, James Kelley, asking what exactly he could not discuss. Was he “forbidden to mention to students that there are important disputes among scientists about whether or not chemical evolution could have taken place on the ancient earth?” Was he barred from mentioning “the important philosophical issues at stake in discussions of origins?” Kelley insisted that Kenyon “teach the dominant scientific view” not the religious view of “special creation on a young earth.” Kenyon replied that he taught the dominant view. But he also discussed problems with it and that some biologists see evidence of intelligent design. He received no reply. Instead, he was yanked from teaching introductory biology and reassigned to labs. Recently, following pressure on the administration from SFSU’s Academic Freedom Committee, its Academic Senate and the American Association of University Professors, Hafernik informed Kenyon that he would be reinstated. The biology department has since, however, proposed to ban as “unscientific” any discussion of “intelligent design.” Academic Freedom: Disturbing Implications Kenyon’s case raises troubling questions about whether scientists must now pass ideological muster to maintain standing in the scientific community. Kenyon, as it turns out, is an authority on chemical evolutionary theory and the scientific study of the origin of life. After receiving a Ph.D. in biophysics at Stanford, he later completed post-doctoral work at Oxford, NASA and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1969, he co authored a seminal theoretical work titled Biochemical Predestination.1 The book articulated what was arguably the most plausible evolutionary account of how a living cell might have organized itself from chemicals in the “primordial soup.” Kenyon’s subsequent work resulted in numerous scientific publications.2 As evidence rolled in during the late 1970s, however, he began to question his earlier ideas. When run under realistic conditions, so-called “simulation” experiments repeatedly produced irrelevant sludge or low yields of desired amino acids.3 Further, molecular biology revealed the encoded messages along the spine of large biomolecules such as DNA.4 Both experiments and developments in the field of information theory suggested that simple chemicals do not arrange themselves into such complex information-bearing molecules without, that is, “guidance” from human experimenters.5 To Kenyon and others, these results raised important questions about how “naturalistic” the origin of life really was. If undirected chemical processes cannot produce the coded strands of information found in even the simplest cells, could perhaps a directing intelligence have played a role? By the 1980s, Kenyon was sympathetic to the idea.6 That a man of Kenyon’s stature should have to lobby for the right to teach introductory biology, whatever his current view of origins, is absurdly comic. Dr. Kenyon knows perhaps as much as anyone in the world about a problem that has stymied an entire generation of research scientists. Yet he has been prevented from reporting the negative results of research7 and from giving students his candid assessment of it. Moreover, as Kenyon has been at pains to explain to his administrators, his view hardly qualifies as biblicism, let alone religious advocacy. When Kenyon discussed the notion of “intelligent design” he did so as an inference from biological data, not a deduction from religious authority. It may well be that the biological evidence Kenyon discussed has larger philosophical¾even theistic¾implications. Yet one can hardly fault Kenyon for that. As his personal history makes clear, his present view has resulted from long years of experimentation and study not a prior religious commitment. Yet even if he had spoken from a prior conviction that “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), it is unclear that academic freedom means college students must be shielded from such notions. Secular intellectuals now openly profess a variety of ideologies and philosophies¾from Feminism and Freudianism, to Deconstruction and Marxism¾as motivating influences on their scholarship and teaching. Jewish and Christian students have long endured the anti- religious polemics of professors who perceive in their fields support for secularism. Why, then, must theistic professors refrain from discussing evidence that seems to lend credibility to their philosophical predelictions? Ideological Neutrality? The problem is Kenyon’s opponents assume science has a unique rational standing and ideological neutrality. Subjective considerations from philosophy and religion do not influence scientific theories; and scientific theories, in turn, can have no philosophical or religious implications. Intelligent design, with its potential implications, violates this alleged neutrality. Thus, despite Kenyon’s credentials and concern with biological data, Hafernik and Kelley decreed that he had moved beyond science and into “religion.” Therefore, he needed to be muzzled¾concerns about academic freedom notwithstanding. This line of reasoning may seem plausible. It certainly seems consistent with the “just-the facts” stereotype of science presented in many introductory science courses. Nevertheless, it reveals a disturbing double standard within an area of science notorious for its philosophical overtones. On any reasonable assessment of the origins controversy, Kenyon’s design theory and the dominant materialistic view are not two different types of thinking, one religious and the other scientific. They are two competing answers to the same question: ’What caused life to arise on earth?’ This competition is tacitly conceded in biology texts that routinely recapitulate Darwinian style arguments against intelligent design.8 Yet if arguments against intelligent design are philosophically neutral and strictly scientific, why are Kenyon’s arguments for design inherently unscientific and religiously charged? Neither approach to origins can claim strict philosophical neutrality. Standard evolutionary theories make the decidedly metaphysical claim that brute matter organized itself into more and more complex living structures without assistance from a guiding intelligence. Neo-Darwinism teaches, as the late Harvard biologist G.G. Simpson put it, even “man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned.”9 Evolution conceived as a completely purposeless process¾a “blind watchmaker’’10 as Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins calls it¾eliminates any role for creative intelligence in the origin of living things. It, therefore, directly contradicts not only ”special creationism," but all theories inconsistent with an aggressive philosophical materialism This includes “God-guided evolution” and even more generic notions such as intelligent design. Whatever the merits of “blind watchmaker” evolution, it is hardly ideologically neutral. Methodological Naturalism Yet Kenyon’s opponents insist that his approach to origins, unlike their own, does not qualify as science. They argue that scientific theories must limit themselves to strictly materialistic explanations. Science is by definition limited to observable realities. Its explanations must, therefore, invoke only natural processes or events. Scientists must obey what philosophers call the principle of “methodological naturalism.’’ll Explanations involving a designer are necessarily excluded.l2 This judgment agrees with popular conceptions of what most scientists, especially experimental scientists, do. But “methodological naturalism” cannot be justified as a normative principle for all types of science¾without doing violence to science as a truth-seeking enterprise. Prohibitions against inferring intelligent design are particularly problematic in historical sciences such as archeology, forensics and paleobiology. Historical scientists address different kinds of questions. Rather than asking about how some part of nature generally behaves, historical scientists ask about what happened in the past or about how things came to be. For example, origin-of-life biologists ask ’what happened to cause life to arise on earth?’l3 This question specifically asks about the events responsible for life’s origin. Since, conceivably, a designer could have played a role, it is difficult to see why postulations of such agency must necessarily be excluded¾especially if biological evidence now supports such a view. It is true that scientists in other fields do not generally make design inferences. Yet, these scientists are not asking about causal origins. Consider the question ’how does atmospheric pressure affect crystal growth?’ To state ’crystals were designed by a creative intelligence’ (or, for that matter, ’crystals evolved via natural processes’) fails to answer the question. Here appropriate answers must discuss how one part of nature generally affects another. They are, therefore, law-like and naturalistic, but only because of the focus of the question. Other types of questions may require other types of answers. Those who insist otherwise make an unwarranted extrapolation. They treat a feature of some science as a normative rule for all. True Science? Defenders of methodological naturalism insist, however, that prohibitions against design inferences are necessary to preserve the rigor of scientific reasoning. Some of Kenyon’s critics at SFSU, for example, have argued that his theory of intelligent design fails to qualify as scientific because it refers to an unseen entity. Since the existence of an unobservable designer cannot be tested, it can’t be part of a scientific theory. Yet many scientific theories postulate unobservable events and entities. Physicists postulate forces, fields and quarks; biochemists infer sub-microscopic structures; psychologists discuss their patients’ mental states. If unobservability precluded testability and scientific status, many scientific theories would not qualify as science.l4 Evolutionary biologists themselves traffic in “unobservables.”They invoke processes whose creative effects often are too slow to see and infer the existence of extinct organisms for which no fossils remain. Like Kenyon’s designer, unobservable ancient forms are inferred because their existence would explain evidence in the present. Darwinian theory and design theory alike rely upon indirect inference and testing, not just direct observation.l5 By inferring an unobservable entity, Kenyon violated no canon of scientific method. Indeed, in seeking the best explanation for evidence, Kenyon employed the same method of reasoning as before he changed his views. His conclusions, not his methods, have changed. Truth or Science? The Kenyon case illustrates another reason for challenging methodological naturalism: It sometimes limits the ability of scientists to seek the truth. Philosophers of science now recognize that theory evaluation is often inherently comparative.l6 Especially in historical sciences where theories can not be tested by predicting outcomes or repeating experiments, scientists must test theories indirectly.l7 They do this by comparing the explanatory power of competing theories to seek the best explanation. If this process of testing is subverted by arbitrarily excluding theoretical options, the rationality of science is compromised. Theories that succeed in gerrymandered competitions can claim to be neither ’the best explanation’ nor ’most probably true’. Instead, they can only be considered ’most probable’ or ’best’ among artificially limited options. As Kenyon’s case illustrates, such a situation now exists in historical biology. Currently, both biological and chemical evolutionary theories are protected from challenge by arbitrary rules excluding non-materialistic theories. Yet the question that must be asked about origins is not: ’which materialistic theory can best explain the origin of life?’ but ’what actually happened to cause life to arise on earth?’ Insisting upon strictly materialistic explanations¾whatever the evidence¾may force scientists to reject a true theory for the sake of an arbitrary convention. Science so encumbered is unworthy of the name. Evidence for Design Considerable evidence now contradicts the dominant evolutionary view of biological origins. The almost universally recognized failure of chemical evolutionl8 to explain life’s initial origin, is now matched by neo- Darwinism’s failure to account for subsequent biological form.l9 Fossil studies now reveal a “biological big bang” in which one hundred disconnected phyla (major groups of organisms) emerged suddenly without clear precursors 530 million years ago.20 Fossil finds repeatedly confirm a pattern of sudden appearance and prolonged stability (not gradual change) in living forms.2l Biochemical evidence reinforces the impression of organisms as systems whose parts¾as with machines¾can not be altered gradually or dramatically without destroying the functioning whole.22 For naturalistic theories, a growing awareness of biological complexity has posed enormous, and perhaps insuperable, challenges. Organisms display any number of distinctive features of intelligently engineered high-tech systems: information storage and transfer capability, regulatory and feed-back mechanisms, hierarchical logic and organization, and precisely sequenced strings of encoded information. Confronted with problems and evidence suggesting a new approach, the Darwinist lobby falls back on subjective complaints about the “imperfect” design of human eyes, panda’s thumbs and male nipples.23 They also invoke their own self-serving rule¾theories must be materialistic to disqualify challengers as crackpots.24 Yet personal attacks and arbitrary rules can not suppress altemative theories forever. With recent developments in probability and complexity theory, the detection of intelligent design has already entered science proper. NASA’s $100 million search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has been based upon the ability to detect the statistical and mathematical signature of intelligently encoded messages.25 Less exotic (and more successful) design detection occurs routinely in both science and industry. Archeology and fraud investigation, forensic science and cryptography would all be impossible if prohibitions against design inferences were applied universally.26 Imagine an archaeologist forced to treat the Rosetta Stone as a natural erosional effect or a homicide detective required to conclude that all victims died of natural causes. Professor Kenyon believes similar absurdities now rule origins biology. To Kenyon and many others,27 the presence of biochemical messages and a corresponding molecular grammar in the cell strongly suggest a prior intelligent design. About this, he may be wrong or right. His argument is based, however, neither on ignorance nor religious authority, but on a biological data and an expertise informed by the modern informational sciences. It has no doubt served the purposes of philosophical materialists to portray Kenyon as a religious fundamentalist unwilling revise dogma in the face of new evidence. In fact, it is their fundamentalism, not his, that is on trial. References 1Dean Kenyon and Gary Stienman, (1969) Biochemical Predestination (New York: McGraw-Hill). 2See, for example, Nissenbaum, A., Kenyon, D.H. and Oro, J. (1975). Journal of molecular evolution 6: 253. Kenyon, D. and Nissenbaum, A. (1976). “On the possible role of organic melanoidin polymers as matrices for prebiotic activity. Journal of molecular evolution 7: 245-251. Kenyon, D. (1984a) ”A comparison of proteinoid and aldocyanoin microsystems as models of the primordial cell." In: Molecular evolution and protobiology. Matsuno, Dose, Harada and Rohlfing, (eds.), pp. 163-88. 3Kerr, R. (1980). “Origin of life: new ingredients suggested.” Science 210: 42-3. Thaxton, C., Bradley, W. and Olsen, R. (1984). The mystery of life’s origin. New York: Philosophical Library, pp. 42-98. 4Portugal, F.H. and Cohen, J.S. (1977). A centurv of DNA. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, pp. 272-282, 298-302. 5Yockey, H.P. (1981) “Self organization origin of life scenarios and information theory”. J. Theor. Biol.. 91: 13- 31. Thaxton, et. al., (1984). The mystery of life’s origin, pp. 99-166. Kok, R.A., Taylor, J.A., and Bradley, W.L. (1988) “A Statistical examination of self-ordering of amino acids in proteins.” Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 18: 135-42. Yockey, H.P., (1992) Information theory and molecular biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 6Kenyon, D. (1984b) “The creationist view of biological origins”. NEXA Journal, Spring Issue, 28-35. Kenyon, D. (1985) “Going beyond the naturalistic mindset in origin-of- life research.” Presented to Conference on Christainity and The University, Dallas, Texas, February, 9-10, 1985. 7Dose, K. (1988) “The origin of life: more questions than answers”. Interdiscipl. Sci. Rev. 13: 348-356. Shapiro, R. (1986). Origins. London: Heinemann. Thaxton, C., Bradley, W. and Olsen, R. (1984). The mystery of life’s origin. New York: Philosophical Library. 8Ayala, F. (1988) “The Theory of Evolution” 15th edt. Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 18: pp. 981-1009, esp. 987. Campbell, C. (1994) Biology concepts and connections. (Menlo Park: Benjamin Cummings), p.258. 9Simpson, G.G. (1967) The real meaning of evolution. Princeton: Yale University Press. P.279 10 Dawkins, R. (1986) The blind watchmaker. New York: W.W. 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