“Kuhnian Paradigm Conflict”: Evolutionists and Creationists

Happy Election Day! As we wait impatiently for results to start rolling in, I offer a distraction (that’s nevertheless implicitly related to the Big Thing on everyone’s mind). Today’s post is about how evolutionists and anti-evolutionists understand science in such radically different terms that they might as well be speaking different languages. On this, I follow an excellent essay written by religious historian George Marsden, “Understanding Fundamentalist Views of Science.” Marsden’s smart piece appeared in Science and Creationism, an anthology published in 1984, just as debates about evolution and creationism were heating up to a degree not felt since Scopes. His central claim was that the divide that separated secularist scientists from fundamentalist creationists was a quintessential “Kuhnian paradigm conflict.”

In the wake of its remarkable mobilization in the late 1970s, which helped contribute to Reagan’s landmark election in 1980, the Christian Right grew more ambitious in its efforts to shape American culture more to its liking. This more than anything else explains the rise of “creation science” in the early 1980s. Fundamentalist thinkers, many of whom worked for the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a creationist think tank housed in southern California, innovated somewhat novel theories and school curricula that challenged evolutionary biology on supposedly scientific grounds. They reasoned that their new creation science, devoid of religious language, should be taught alongside evolution in the public schools because it was scientifically superior to evolution. Creationist science was introduced in several state legislatures and became part of the Arkansas state science curriculum in 1981. (The Supreme Court ruled all creationist curricula unconstitutional in its 1987 case, Edwards v. Aguillard). Scientists, predictably, scoffed at the very premise of creationist science, which they deemed an oxymoron (along with fundamentalist scientist).

Marsden, arguably the best historian of American fundamentalist thought, countered by pointing out that fundamentalism was not strictly anti-science. Rather, it adhered to a different scientific method, one developed prior to Darwinism and other modern forms of thought. “The epistemology that prevailed in Western culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries dominates much of their thinking,” Marsden wrote, labeling fundamentalists “Baconian” in their belief that “true science” “is a matter of induction.” This meant that while their method included observation and classification, it did not include “speculative hypotheses incapable of verification by observation.” Henry Morris, a foremost creationist thinker, exemplified such an approach. “Science is knowledge and the essence of scientific method is experimentation and observation. Since it is impossible to make observations or experiments on the origin of the universe,” he argued, “the very definition of science ought to preclude use of the term when talking about evolution.” In short, evolution could not explain human origins.

Of course, contradictions abounded. Most creationist scientists believed that the existence of a divine creator, an unobservable hypothesis if ever there was one, could be explained scientifically. Marsden explained that evangelicals had confidence in their knowledge that the existence of God was an “objective scientific certainty” due to their “philosophical foundation of trust in the ‘common sense’ of mankind.” This allowed for normative claims about God and human nature. Marsden paraphrased a few such claims: “All normal humans are, by the very constitution of their nature, forced to believe certain basic truths, such as the existence of the external world, the existence of other persons, the continuity of one’s self and of others, and the reliability (under certain circumstances) of one’s sense perceptions, memory, and the testimony of others.” In short, Common Sense closed the gap between objective scientific knowledge and unobservable hypotheses in a way that wild speculation could not. Such a theory of science was grounded in the assumption that knowledge was stable across time. To hold on to such a theory, fundamentalists not only had to reject Darwinism, but also most other modern forms of thought—to say nothing about postmodernism! Derrida’s playful dictum that “there is nothing outside the text” did not comport with Baconian sensibilities about the external world, to put it mildly.

Marsden’s historical analysis of fundamentalist thought was his way of showing scientists that they had to do better when talking to fundamentalists about human origins. The simple admonishment that evolution was “fact” was not a good means for getting fundamentalists to be more sympathetic to evolutionary science. It was not the way to bridge alternative Kuhnian paradigms. What was viewed as fact by one side seemed like wild speculation to the other. This, at its core, is the modern epistemological gap that structures so many of the conflicts that we call the culture wars.

Marsden does a nice job describing these epistemological distinctions:

The fundamentalist outlook preserves essentially Enlightenment and pre-Kantian philosophical categories. Truth is fixed and eternal and something to be discovered either by scientific inquiry or by looking at some other reliable source such as the Bible. Much of the rest of modern thought, however, had gradually come to view the human mind as imposing its categories on reality. Perception itself in this view is an interpretative process. Truth, moreover, is relative to the observer and to the community or culture of the inquirer. Speculative theorizing is essential, since human thought in any case involves such imposing of one’s constructs on reality.

The essay immediately following Marsden’s in the Science and Creationism anthology, Stephen Jay Gould’s “Evolution as Fact and Theory,” made clear the Kuhnian paradigm conflict. Gould was one of the most famous evolutionary biologists in the world, partly because he was in the forefront of pioneering a new theory about evolution that went beyond Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Gould’s “punctuated equilibrium” posited that evolution was much more random than Darwin and his epigones had theorized. “Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the differential success of certain kinds of species.”

Gould was also famous because he was a clear and prolific writer, unlike many of his scientist colleagues.  For example, Ashley Montagu, the editor of the Science and Creationism anthology, wrote the following sentence in his contribution: “What we do have is incontrovertible proof of the fact of evolution, namely, that genetic changes have come about in populations which have resulted in the great variety of plant and animal forms on this Earth, or put more simply, the transformation of the form and mode of existence of organisms in such a way that the descendants differ from their predecessors.” This was not very clear, to say the least. Gould was much better at clearly communicating complex ideas. As such, his writing acts as a a good control to see if Marsden’s Kuhnian paradigm conflict applied in all instances.

Gould’s main point was that creationists “play upon a vernacular misunderstanding of the word ‘theory.’” In short, they believed that theory was somehow less than fact. Reagan echoed this misunderstanding when speaking to a group of evangelicals about evolution: “Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science—that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was.” Gould countered with a definition of theory commonly understood by scientists: “structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts.” When scientists debated competing theories, he argued, facts didn’t evaporate. “Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s in this century, but apples didn’t suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome.” In other words, for scientists, evolution was both fact and theory: “humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.” Darwin was right about the fact of evolution, even if Gould and others believed he was wrong about the theory (natural selection) that explained the mechanism of evolution.

This is all very clear to me. But how would a fundamentalist reader interpret it? 

Time and Again

In Indiana this week, we went back to the future. Governor Mitch Daniels signed legislation making Indiana the first right-to-work (RTW) state in the midwest. A victory Republicans have been fighting for since the late 1960s. At almost the same moment, the state senate approved a bill that would allow creationism to be taught in science classes. Was the passage of these two measures mere coincidence or is the state of Indiana, my home for the past eleven years, returning to the 1880s?

So what gives? Are the measures linked some how? They are both sponsored by conservative politicians, and yet would seem to have little in common with each other in substance. However, in light of reading an interesting exchange of letters between Corey Robin and Mark Lilla in the February 7, 2012 New York Review of Books there might be a way to explain this convergence.

This blog has brought up the Robin-Lilla debate before and Robin has provided an overview of the basic argument of his book in a blog post as well. What struck me about the recent exchange of letters is the debate over the effects of conservative action. In other words, it seems to me that Lilla argues for a strand of conservatism that seeks to preserve a fundamental sense of liberty against revolutions to recreate society, time and again. Robin rejects that conservatism is preservationist; rather he argues it is reactionary, it seeks to create (radically at times) a world without much concern for justice because the liberty to exercise power is ultimately more important.

In the context of Indiana's recent legislative flurry, the Lilla school of conservatism might see RTW and creationism as moves to return the state to a pre-revolutionary moment, before the revolutions of worker power and scientific elites took the ability to negotiate contracts and teach children (respectively) out of the hands of the people. The Robin school of conservatism might see RTW and creationism as a two-pronged attacked against the establishment of justice for workers and professionals in science education (who had helped make Indiana students more competent in a scientifically-oriented world).

It seems to me that the difference between Lilla and Robin might be illustrated through the relationship between ideas and action. Lilla points to conservatives in the 19th century such as Disraeli and Bismarck who supported legislation that advanced causes of justice--Reform Act of 1867 and the welfare state respectively. In Lilla's view, we can read ideas held by these conservatives backward through the acts and thereby suggest their conservatism finds no place in Robin's categorical analysis. In Robin's view, ideas propounded by conservatives such as Edmund Burke and John C. Calhoun to Sarah Palin and perhaps Mitch Daniels do not need to demonstrate unity through action because their ideas will manifest themselves in different ways given the different movements they are opposing and seeking to overwhelm. Rather, their ideas are joined through a notion (to play on the old H.L. Mencken line) that somebody, somewhere is messing with a social order that I believe is right and good.

For me, Robin's use of conservatism is elastic in the sense the "reactionary mind" acts in a consistent way but not necessarily with results that look alike. And that insight might point to the dilemma of the left--its struggle for justice requires results to be consistent while its tactics vary. The reactionary works against challenges to a concept of order and even though that understanding of order can differ from person to person the instinct remains the same, to put down that which would change an established order.

Such reasoning is on display in Indiana. In a debate held recently at my university between a member of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and an Untied Steel Workers representative, the spokesman for the chamber stated bluntly (though not intentionally) that corporations want RTW laws because they don't like having to share power in the workplace with unions. Likewise, in an interview regarding the creationist bill, its sponsor told the Indianapolis Star, "Many people believe in creation. Our schools are teaching what many people believe is false."

Indeed, both ideas suggest a period from the past, but that is not the inspiration for their actions--they do not wish to return the state to an earlier time. Both measures seek to transform relationships of power in ways that will make their respective "spaces" less just and less favorable to those who would share in the power to shape those spaces. The fact that RTW and creationism seem to share little in common as legislative measures does not mean that intellectual spirit behind is not the same.

Evolution versus Creationism: Why Teach Science

Texas Governor, presidential hopeful, and prominent conservative culture warrior Rick Perry, when asked recently about his views on evolution, responded: “It’s a theory that’s out there. It’s got some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both Creationism and evolution.” The thing that most horrified some Texans about his response was the implication that their state was intentionally violating constitutional law. In the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a U.S. Federal Court ruled that teaching “intelligent design,” the latest in creationist thought, violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Perry’s comments thus reveal either ignorance of the law, or disdain for it.



Constitutional mandates against the teaching of creationism go at least as far back as the Supreme Court’s 1987 decision, Edwards v. Aguillard. In that case the Court ruled that Louisiana’s “Creationism Act,” which prohibited the teaching of evolution except when coupled with equal curricular time for creationism, was unconstitutional on the grounds that it “advance[d] the religious viewpoint that a supernatural being created humankind.” But then, as now, conservative culture warriors sought ways to resist court-ordered rules against the teaching of creationism—part of a larger struggle against a liberal public school curriculum they deemed a Trojan horse for secular humanism.



In the 1990s, the Christian Right implemented a new technique in its fight against the liberalized curriculum. Activists ran “stealth” campaigns for local school boards, only campaigning amongst their coreligionists, who were expected to vote in high numbers. “We’re trying to generate as large a voter turnout as possible among our constituency,” the Christian Coalition’s Ralph Reed explained, “by communicating with them in a way that does not attract the fire of our opponents.” The plan worked to perfection in Vista, California, a suburb of San Diego, where conservatives gained a three-person majority on the five-person school board in 1992. John Tyndall, one of the newly elected conservatives who worked as an accountant for the Institute for Creation Research, a creationist think tank, attracted controversy when he asked a committee of science teachers to review a manifesto for intelligent design—Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins—for inclusion in the curriculum. Soon after the committee predictably rejected the book, the conservatives on the board rewrote the local science standards to include the following clause: “To enhance positive scientific exploration and dialogue, weaknesses that substantially challenge theories in evolution should be presented.” Such organizing at the local level set the table for bigger moves, such as when conservative culture warriors gained a majority on the Kansas school board and then controversially removed evolution from its state standards in 1999.



The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the leading professional association of scientists, fought back against this culture wars creationist push with the publication of two pamphlets for general consumption: Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science (1998); and Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences (1999). The NAS posited these two pamphlets as an appropriate response to a 1996 Gallup Poll that alarmingly showed fewer than half of Americans “believe that humans evolved from earlier species.” In contrast to millions of Americans, the NAS pamphlets were insistent about the veracity of evolutionary science:



Those who oppose the teaching of evolution in public schools sometimes ask that teachers present ‘the evidence against evolution.’ However, there is no debate within the scientific community over whether evolution occurred, and there is no evidence that evolution has not occurred. Some of the details of how evolution occurs are still being investigated. But scientists continue to debate only the particular mechanisms that result in evolution, not the overall accuracy of evolution as the explanation of life’s history.



From my vantage point—as a non-scientist seeking to understand enough of the science to get a fair reading on the politics of a curriculum controversy—these two pamphlets, together, represent one of the clearest explanations about the science of evolution, and the lack of science informing creationism and intelligent design. They convincingly demonstrate that scientific fields informed by evolutionary science—genetics, molecular biology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, biogeography, and embryology, among others—confirm one of Darwin’s key theories: natural selection, or, that naturally occurring variations are hereditable. “Although the genetic variation on which natural selection works is based on random or chance elements, natural selection itself produces ‘adaptive’ change—the very opposite of chance.”



The NAS authors also do a good job of showing the gaps in logic—the anti-science—that inform the various creationist arguments. For instance, one of the creationist contentions is that the fossil record studied by evolutionary paleontologists is too incomplete to be revealing. Although this was true when Darwin conceptualized natural selection in the 19th century, by the late 20th, this was patently false. Paleontologists have shown that “undisturbed strata with simple unicellular organisms predate those with multicellular organisms, and invertebrates precede vertebrates; nowhere has this sequence been found inverted.” Furthermore, to put it in terms my three-year-old might understand, nowhere on Earth did fossil evidence suggest that humans lived alongside dinosaurs (for now, I’ll keep this a secret from my son, since he is drawn to stories about human-dinosaur interaction). Moreover, the trump card of “intelligent design” rests on a post hoc fallacy: that some biological workings “are so irreducibly complex that they can function only if all the components are operative at once,” thus mitigating against the possibility of natural selection, which requires the isolation of single genetic functions. This is fallacious because it assumes that something complex is not comprised of several less complex parts. “Natural selection can bring together parts of a system for one function at one time and then, at a later time, recombine those parts with other systems of components to produce a system that has a different function.”



Despite such lucid scientific explanation—and despite the patient debunking of creationism—the NAS pamphlets are less sensible about curricular politics. For instance, they imply time and again that those who oppose the teaching of evolution on religious grounds need not do so because most of “the major religious denominations have taken official positions that accept evolution.” That Catholics or Buddhists have adjusted their religious doctrines to account for evolutionary science is small consolation to those fundamentalist Christians who cannot reconcile their faith with Darwin. Thus, if this rhetorical strategy is meant to convince, it fails miserably—fundamentalist Christians have long taken pride in their doctrinal differences with Rome, not to mention with secular humanists! If it was meant to condescend, well, it works, but to what end?



Another problem with the NAS pamphlets, more serious from my perspective, is that they ignore the Big Question, which has never fully been settled in the teaching evolution controversy, going back to the Scopes Monkey Trial: Who decides what is taught to the children? Should democratically elected local school boards control the curriculum, as argued by William Jennings Bryan? Or should experts, those with their fingers on the pulse of science and scholarship, as argued by Clarence Darrow?



Related to this problem, the NAS offered only a half-hearted defense of science education. Like historians and other assorted humanists, scientists rationalize the need for science education as essential to democracy. Democratic citizens need “the same skills that scientists use in their work—close observation, careful reasoning, and creative thinking based on what is known about the world.”



Not that I disagree with this assessment of scientific thinking, but I would like a more fully developed epistemological rationale for science than the notion that it inculcates democratic habits of mind. Because, as I think Jackson Lears brilliantly shows in his superb takedown of Sam Harris, sometimes scientists are prone to anti-democratic scientism, or, they arrogantly apply science where it has no application.



This leads me to my concluding question: does anyone know of a good epistemological defense of science, historical or contemporary?



As I argued a few months ago with regards to the secular humanism question, I think we as educators should always be clear about the epistemological foundations of our pedagogical and intellectual approaches. And if our approaches challenge the epistemological foundations of our students, these gulfs should be explored, not shoved under the rug so as to avoid controversy or hurt feelings.