Facts And Opinions
Checking out various radio stations while driving (which is still legal--I don't believe the same can be said for TV stations) recently, I stopped when I heard someone mention Darwin. And this was a commercial station, not public radio, where you might expect to hear science talk.
Imagine my disappointment when I discovered it was some nonsense about how evolution is a theory in crisis, or something like that. If these anti-Darwin people want to be taken seriously, they should at least be honest and say they desperately want the theory to be in crisis, but the world of science hasn't obliged them yet.
Even worse, it turns out this show has a weekly hour with spokespeople from the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute, where they discuss, I assume, the latest propaganda.
Then comes Thursday's unanimous Supreme Court opinion which declares human genes can't be patented. Fine, probably the right result. But at the end comes a weird concurrence in part from Justice Scalia. Here it is in full:
I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. It suffices for me to affirm, having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; and that complementary DNA (cDNA) is a synthetic creation not normally present in nature.
Part I-A is an unexceptional two-page review of basic genetics, seems to me. I don't mean to bore you, but here's a selection from the first and last paragraphs:
Genes form the basis for hereditary traits in living organisms. [....] The human genome consists of approximately 22,000 genes packed into 23 pairs of chromosomes. Each gene is encoded as DNA,which takes the shape of the familiar "double helix" that Doctors James Watson and Francis Crick first described in 1953. Each "cross-bar" in the DNA helix consists of two chemically joined nucleotides. The possible nucleotides are adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G), each of which binds naturally with another nucleotide: A pairs with T; C pairs with G. The nucleotide cross-bars are chemically connected to a sugar-phosphate backbone that forms the outside framework of the DNA helix. Sequences of DNA nucleotides contain the information necessary to create strings of amino acids, which in turn are used in the body to build proteins.
[....]
Changes in the genetic sequence are called mutations. Mutations can be as small as the alteration of a single nucleotide—a change affecting only one letter in the genetic code. Such small-scale changes can produce an entirely different amino acid or can end protein production altogether. Large changes, involving the deletion, rearrangement, or duplication of hundreds or even millions of nucleotides, can result in the elimination, misplacement, or duplication of entire genes. Some mutations are harmless, but others can cause disease or increase the risk of disease. As a result, the study of genetics can lead to valuable medical breakthroughs.
I don't see what problem Scalia has. Supreme Court opinions regularly require the Justices to become mini-experts on all sort of issues. Does a Justice ever say in a financial opinion "I don't understand the nitty-gritty of what banks do, to be honest, but I agree with the majority"?
If Scalia has a problem with the scientific description in Part I-A, I wish he'd be more specific, rather than just say he can't personally be sure he believes it. I could be wrong, but I suspect Scalia doesn't want to officially admit the conventional view of science is correct in the world of genetics since he thinks that might close out the possibility of intelligent design.
In any case, I have to ask--is this what being a religous conservative now means? You have to have trouble with evolution? There are plenty of political battles going on between right and left, but this one does conservatives no honor.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:01 AM
9 Comments:
Personally, I prefer "cruel design."
Does Scalia think he is going to run for office at the end of his term? Or is it the speaking engagements that he fears for- he'd miss the adoration of his rabble if he slipped a little towing the line
The term "religious conservative" is quite broad, but I don't know any reasonable definition that excludes folks who believe in evolution.
With regard to evolution and Judaism/Christianity, I would suggest that five distinct viewpoints are notable, and should each be distinguished from the others:
1) God created the world pretty much as described in the book of Genesis, and the world is about 6000 years old.
2) God created the world pretty much as described in the book of Genesis, and the world is millions or billions of years old.
3) The universe is billions of years old, and human beings are directly descended from other species, going back to one-celled life forms. The development of human beings involved some natural selection, and also some miracles by God (e.g., the creation of new genes during the process). This viewpoint is what most of "Intelligent Design" theorists assert.
4) Humans evolved from one-celled life forms according to the processes recognized by most scientists. God created the universe and intended for this process to happen.
5) Humans evolved from one-celled life forms according to the processes recognized by most scientists. There is no God (or at least, if there is, he had nothing to do with the creation of the universe or anything in it).
I have no idea what Scalia believes, but as long as his views on this matter aren't determinative in his rulings, I don't mind him mentioning his views parenthetically.
(forgot my conclusion:) I know "religious conservatives" who are in categories 1, 2, 3, and 4, as well as some on the fence (e.g., one is on the fence between 1 & 2, and another on the fence between 3 & 4). But I almost never have heard anyone bringing up these issues in a political context, except by local politicians when school textbooks are discussed.
People in categories 1, 2 and 3 are fighting--and I don't believe in rational ways--against present-day science's basic understanding of biology. I favor true, informed debate, not this. I don't see how this can be good for society, and not just regarding education, but also research, and advances in our understanding of the world.
Perhaps I know different ID people from you, but it's my experience--based on what their spokespeople say and publish--that most are not in category 3, and question almost every aspect of evolution. For instance, they seem to support special creation of species, and question if a new species can ever be created by natural processes. (At the very least, they seem to make a "god of the gaps" argument, ceding ground whenever they see no other way, but otherweise insisting on supernatural intervention whenever possible.) I see no important intellectual distinction between ID and creationism--ID grew out of creationism for political reasons.
I can't say it's a good thing that as the law of our land we now have a dissent on record against a fairly trivial statement of science. As to whether Scalia's views will be determinative in his rulings, I think they already have--specifically, in his dissent in Edwards v. Aguillard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._Aguillard
Your point about the ID people you hear from is interesting. It's possible we have heard from different people, or that we read between the lines in different ways.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "special creation". To me, a key question is the classic "Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?" ID people claim to have the same understanding of macroscopic biology that regular scientists do. One indisputable fact in macroscopic biology is that it's impossible for any known mammal to grow from embryo to adulthood without spending their early life inside a womb. (Maybe someday scientists will develop artificial wombs, but so far it hasn't happened.)
Therefore it seems that there can be only two methods of "special creation". One is that God miraculously creates two (or more) adult chipmunks who never had a childhood or any parents. The other is that two squirrels mate, but God miraculously alters the DNA of the new squirrel embryo so that it becomes a chipmunk, and the first chipmunk is born to a squirrel mother.
I was thinking of the former option as my category 2, and the latter as category 3. Note that in the latter theory, mammals would still have mitochondrial DNA that links us back via the maternal line to ancient lifeforms, just as evolution predicts. In the former theory, one would expect that the first members of every single mammal species would be very behaviorally messed up, since mammals that are not raised by parents inevitably have distored and abnormal social skills.
Special creation is a term creationists use that merely means species and life began suddenly, not by evolving into its form (and generally the understanding is this origin comes from some divine source).
The category 3 people you refer to are willing to go almost all the way, but won't take the last step, and stop short at accepting humans evolved like other animals. As I said, this is not the ID type--such as the Discovery Institute, who have trouble with the most basic claims of evolutionary theory--that I'm familiar with.
The biggest problem is that all the missing links were lost because they weren't on Noah's Ark during the Big Flood.
That would be the study of arkaeology.
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