Evolving Thoughts

Notre Dame conference – the washup

It’s been a great conference. Simon Conway Morris was fun (but wrong! It’s OK, he says I am too). Peter Bowler’s talk on “what-if history” – what if Darwin had drowned on the Beagle? was actually interesting and raised some nice points about both the nature of the theory of evolution that would have resulted if Darwin had not been there, a kind of early evo-devo, and also whether eugenics and social “Darwinism” would have developed anyway (almost certainly yes, as the ideas were around long before Darwin, although they may not have had such strong hereditarian tendencies; Weikart is wrong on everything he says).

Jean Gayon was excellent on the prospects for Darwinian thought*, and I really liked most of the other speakers too. When an ID proponent stood up and berated the speakers for dismissing and deriding ID, Francisco Ayala gave the best response: they are just plain embarrassing to have around. Bernard Wood went further: it’s animal cruelty, like shooting fish in a barrel. Phil Sloan, one of the organisers, was more measured – this is a forward looking conference on science and religion, not backward looking. I think they call that a backward compliment.

One thing that has struck me is that nobody ever suggested that evolution, in particular Darwinian evolution, was false or mistaken. Given that this is a Catholic event jointly organised as part of the Pontifical Council for Culture, this is significant. There is not the slightest hint of creationism or ID among these people. I take this as a sign that if either have any purchase in Catholic culture, it is in contradiction to Catholic doctrine and authority.

* I disagree with him that the “web of life” will replace the “tree of life” as if you can identify lateral transfer, you must be able to identify the taxa that transfer is later with respect to, and if everything is a web, then you have a tokogenetic relationship, not a taxonomic one.

Tomorrow I fly to San Francisco and then train to Berkeley. I meet up with systematists at Berkeley and try to sell the book, and on Saturday with my internet friends (I have more of them in America than friends in Australia, which is sad, in one way, except when I come to America). Pizza is likely at both events. Then home on Sunday, arriving Tuesday Australian time, before I fly to Queensland for a job interview. By the next weekend I may be dead.

Evolution General Science History Metaphysics Philosophy Religion Science Systematics

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Razib has a post on a paper in BMC Evolutionary Biology that shows, fairly well, I thought, that Australian aborigines are most closely related to relict populations of indigenous Indian tribes. They are touting this as evidence that the “southern route” from Africa was the one taken by the Australians…

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Comments (11)

  1. Are you doing a book reading/signing in Berkeley or trying to sell it to UC Press?

    1. Neither. UC Press published it anyway. I’m trying to sell it to biologists.

  2. One thing reading your blog convinced me of (or rather, revealed to me) is that biologists and philosophers of science aren’t the same people.

    We have another rift!

    1. Philosophers aren’t the same people.

      But they tend not to make the godawful arguments Simon Conway Morris does, at least not in public…

  4. Glad to see you enjoyed your brief stay in the Hoosier state.

    Francisco Ayala is supposed to come down to Bloomington tomorrow for a “debate” with creationist William Lain Craig which will be “moderated” by ID proponent Bradley Monton. Local creationists have already chalked “By design or evolution?” all over the sidewalks at IU.

    I foresee a trainwreck.

    1. Oh, and I know how much you hate scare-quotes, but I just can’t stand to refer to these creationist dog-and-pony shows as debates…

      1. Do not write Ayala off. He does not pull any punches when it comes to creationism.

      2. Ugh. The “debate” was exactly the trainwreck I expected it to be.

        Ayala was not at all prepared for the kinds of tactics creationists use in debates. He made a terrible mistake by having the entirety of his opening consist of a defense of common ancestry, something the IDiots are careful to avoid. But by putting himself on the defensive from the get-go, he gave Craig the opening he needed.

        Smelling blood, Craig immediately went on the offensive. He attacked Dawkins for no relevant reason that I can discern. He then attacked Ayala for things he said in his book “Darwin’s Gift”, which I’d bet hardly anyone in the audience has read, meaning there’s no way anyone can check to see if Craig is being honest. He then accused Ayala of being unscientific and mixing science with religion. (!) He even claimed to be “agnostic” on whether ID is true, which anyone who’s familiar with his writing knows is a lie.

        After that, he went on to give one whopper of a lie after another. He claimed that Lenski’s experiments with E. coli only showed degeneration but no new genetic information. He demonstrated the boneheaded creationist refusal to understand population genetics by claiming that peppered moths and finches don’t exhibit natural selection because they only involve changes in proportions in the population, not white moths turning into black moths. He distorted the science on HIV, malaria, E. coli, and a host of other micro-organisms. He also claimed that no one has ever provided any evidence for natural selection (which he called “Darwinism”, of course).

        But the worst part was, Ayala clearly was not at all prepared for this. In fact, if I remember correctly, he didn’t rebut a single one of Craig’s lies and distortions. He just let Craig’s bullshit stand unchallenged.

        Ayala then made what I thought was the worst mistake of the “debate”–he shifted over to trying to make a purely theological argument against ID. Craig is a theologian/philosopher and Ayala is a biologist–when they were talking science, he at least had the advantage of expertise. But when he switched to pure theology, he again put himself at the disadvantage.

        And Craig was obviously prepared. He had several slides prepared rebutting each of Ayala’s claims that theistic evolution provided a better theodicy than special creation. I think this tactic of trying to use theology to rebut ID is severely misguided. Like it or not, theistic evolution makes no sense at all–at least creationism has intuitive appeal. Neither provides a convincing theodicy, but it’s at least true that creationism’s theodicy isn’t any worse than theistic evolution’s.

        And, as I suspected, Monton’s pro-ID book was plugged multiple times. There was a counter set up to sell it out front. The MC of the event plugged Monton’s book, letting people know they could buy it outside. Monton plugged his own book. The programs they handed out all contained announcements about Monton’s new book and how you could buy it in the lobby for just $17. Since the debacle was sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ, I’m sure Monton made a pretty penny on the whole farce.

        Ugh. This just reaffirms my initial suspicion that these “debates” are at best a waste of time, and at worst extremely counterproductive. But maybe I’m biased.

        I recorded the event. If anyone wants a copy, give me an email address and I’ll send it to you. Maybe you’ll come away with a better impression than I had. I admit I came in with lots of preconceived notions and confirmation bias might be at work in my appraisal. But all I can say is that I think Ayala’s first mistake was agreeing to participate in this “debate” at all.

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