McCain and Intelligent Design
It seems that Senator John McCain “will be the keynote speaker for the most prominent creationism advocacy group” in the United States. Satyam, writing for Think Progress, points out:
The Discovery Institute, a religious right think-tank, is well-known for its strong opposition to evolutionary biology and its advocacy for “intelligent design.� The institute’s main financial backer, savings and loan heir Howard Ahmanson, spent 20 years on the board of the Chalcedon Foundation, “a theocratic outfit that advocates the replacement of American civil law with biblical law.�
I have to admit that I cannot possibly get worked up about this. It seems to me that it is quite logical for Republicans who have Presidential aspirations to talk with / to think-tanks like The Discovery Institute. Whether one likes it or not, the ‘Religious Right’ is an integral part of the Republican Party.
However, what is relevant is what McCain is going to say. As points out, McCain said in 2005:
Daily Star: Should intelligent design be taught in schools?
McCain: I think that there has to be all points of view presented. But they’ve got to be thoroughly presented. So to say that you can only teach one line of thinking I don’t think is – or one belief on how people and the world was created – I think there’s nothing wrong with teaching different schools of thought.
Daily Star: Does it belong in science?
McCain: There’s enough scientists that believe it does. I’m not a scientist. This is something that I think all points of view should be presented.
And in 2006:
“I think Americans should be exposed to every point of view,” he said. “I happen to believe in evolution…I respect those who think the world was created in seven days. Should it be taught as a science class? Probably not.”
Will he change his position? Will he give in to the demands of certain elements of the ‘Religious Right’?
Sadly, I am afraid, we will not find out about that any time soon since the topics of the ‘luncheon’ are:
“What is the role of the U.S. in the global community? How should the U.S. position itself over the next decade? What are the challenges, and how should they be addressed? What are the future global impacts on Washington State?”
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57 Responses to “McCain and Intelligent Design”
CS as always, its a pleasure to comment with someone as thoughtful as you.
It seems to me most of your concerns about objective domination of the metaphysical occur in realms in which science has made no claim to knowledge.
My question, which I hope demonstrates the problem I outlined above, is ‘what if one day, we gain an objective understanding of these phenomenon?’
Let us look at the man/animal question as it’s resolution is a bit more foreseeable. Let us pretend that one day science is able to objectively show that mammals are fundamentally different than humans. We are able to quantify consciousness in a person, and can prove that such quality does not exist in any mammal. Then, the Hindu belief that the cow is a sacred animal with rights equal to (and in some cases exceeding) a human’s is unfounded. The fact that there are billions of Hindus should not change this fact, and the law should reflect the observable fact, not faith.
Conversely, what if one day science prove that animals have what we call consciousness? If scientists could show that they feel pain, suffering, love and hate in the same manner as humans, should we continue some to deny the rights of animals because of Christian convictions of man’s dominion over beasts? I think that in such a situation, acquiescing to religious conviction would be a grave lapse in moral judgment.
I have no problem with faith being a guiding light in the darkness. I see it as an honest attempt to answer the big questions which science may never be able to answer such as the meaning of life. However, I reiterate my previous assertion: when faith and evidence both propose to have the answer to the same question, evidence must not bend.
Kevin, some scientists do indeed intrude their scientific thinking into the realm of the religious, claiming knowledge of the metaphysical. There are plenty of scientists who assert that evolution, along with the Big Bang and other scientific theories, prove that God does not exist. Richard Dawkins is certainly the most prominent example.
That certainly is not the same as “science” making a claim to metaphysical knowledge, but his arguments on behalf of science must be addressed by religious-minded people.
P.S. On the issue of animals and “consciousness,” that’s not really a scientific question, but a definitional one. Once we define “consciousness”, then it may, depending on the definition, be possible to scientifically determine whether an animal is conscious.
P.S. Kevin, I meant to join in your sentiment about the pleasure of having a substantive discussion with calm, reasonable people.
PatHMV, certainly that is true that there will always be extremists on both sides of any argument. Dawkins’ ideas are not as widely believed among scientists as some would fear. For every avid disbeliever there seems to be a story of a biochemist who doesn’t believe in evolution.
I would argue that there is generally only scientific consensus when there is verifiable evidence. In the current political debate that puts most scientists at odd with most followers of the predominate modern flavors of faith.
The Dawkins reference also echoes some of the routine religion is good/ religion is evil back and forth. Its often quite odd to me for people who denounce a creator imbuing things with innate goodness or badness to talk about religion is evil to the core. I think history makes it clear that religion is powerful. It can create peace where there is war, or war where there was peace. It is a matter of how this force is used in day to day life which should be debated, not wither the net effects are slightly negative or slightly positive.
Amen.
If anyone’s still reading this thread, I wanted to comment on this. I actually encountered this exact phenomena when discussing abortion with cosmo. He asserts that consciousness is the de facto principle in determining the start point for the right to life. By defining it in those terms, he then goes on to say that he can ‘prove’ that any human fetus before birth can’t be a human being with rights. This is the kind of definitional goal setting that I’m objecting to, and I agree with Pat that you could easily do the same in the discussion of ‘rights of animals’. Cosmo and his ilk want to put an end to any discussion about the beginning of an individual human life, so he sets the goal post in such a way that he can call on science to make his case for him.
Religion and science simply need to remain as two separate domains. People like Creationists or IDers are infringing on that principle, but there ARE those in the science camp who would also infringe on the domain of religion and we should be just as vigilant in calling them out on it.
I still am =)
Cosmo is being disengenuous. While we know conciousness must relate to some form of neural activity, we don’t really have any better understanding than that. There are philosophical theories on what would be required for conciousness. My person favorite is some version of the global workspace theory. However, that is a long long way from ‘proof’. In fact, with our current ethical guidelines it may be impossible for us to ever really determine what human conciousness is. Current studies on humans must (in almost all cases) use indirect methods such as fMRI and ERP to determine neural activity. While these methods can certainly give us a great insight into some of the processes which occur in the brain, I believe they are insufficent to gain a formal understanding of deep issues such as subjective qualia.
However, the basic idea of inalienable rights coincideing with conciousness
I’m not 100% sure this is what your advocating, but I do not think the “domain” of science and religion should not be codified at any one time point. To go back to the Zeus example, imagine the dificult situation we would be in if we set those domains with “lightening” firmly in the religous domain.