The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The...

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The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical Sciences Philosophy The College of Arts & Sciences Dr. Elliott Sober Hans Reichenbach Professor & William F. Vilas Research Professor University of Wisconsin - Madison Charles Darwin and “Intelligent design”
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Transcript of The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The...

Page 1: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies

2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE

Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical

Sciences Philosophy The College of Arts & Sciences

Dr. Elliott Sober Hans Reichenbach Professor & William F. Vilas Research Professor University of Wisconsin - Madison

Charles Darwin and “Intelligent

design”

Page 2: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Hilary Putnam

analytical philosophythe mindlanguage

mathematicscomputer sciences

Albert Einstein

probabilityrelativity

time and spacequantum mechanics

Hans Reichenbach

simplicity

parsimony

evolutionary

biology

Elliott Sober

Page 3: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

• Evolutionary Biology

• Evolutionary Theory

• Evolutionary Philosophy

• Adaptationism and Optimality

• Psychology of Unselfish Behavior

• Reconstructing the Past

• Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference

• The Nature of Selection

Important underpinnings of Evolutionary Biology

Page 4: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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Darwinism and Intelligent Design

Elliott Sober

Philosophy Department

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Page 5: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Outline

1 What is Evolutionary Theory?

2 God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2

3 Guided Mutations

4 Darwin’s views on God and Christianity

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Page 6: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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What is evolutionary theory?

• It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.

Page 7: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

v

the only diagram in the Origin

Page 8: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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What is evolutionary theory?

• It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.

• It regards natural selection as an important cause of the diversity we observe.

Page 9: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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What is evolutionary theory?

• It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.

• It regards natural selection as an important cause of the diversity we observe.

• It regards mutations as unguided.

Page 10: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Evolutionary theory is a scientific theory, not a philosophy.

• It says nothing about God, or materialism, or ethics, or free will, or life after death.

• It obeys the principle of “methodological naturalism,” not “metaphysical naturalism.”

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Page 11: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Methodological Naturalism: scientific theories should not postulate the existence of

a supernatural God.

Metaphysical Naturalism: No supernatural God exists.

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The 2 naturalisms

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Page 12: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Methodological Naturalism: scientific theories should not postulate the existence of

a supernatural God. Metaphysical Naturalism: No supernatural

God exists.

Evolutionary theory embraces the former, not the latter.

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The 2 naturalisms

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Page 13: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Outline

1 What is Evolutionary Theory?

2 God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2

3 Guided Mutations

4 Darwin’s views on God and Christianity

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Page 14: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2

Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and there is no God.

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Page 15: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2

Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and there is no God.

Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God exists.

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Page 16: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2

Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and there is no God.

Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God exists.

Are theism and evolutionary theory

inconsistent with each other?

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Page 17: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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“… any confusion between the ideas suggested by science and science itself must be carefully

avoided.”

─ Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity

Page 18: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2

Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and there is no God.

Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God exists.

Theistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and God exists.

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Page 19: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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Creationism (C)

complex adaptive (C) God the evolutionary process │ features of organisms

Page 20: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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What evolutionary theory rejects in Creationism

complex adaptive (C) God the evolutionary process │ features of organisms

Page 21: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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What evolutionary theory does not reject in Creationism

complex adaptive (C) God the evolutionary process │ features of organisms

Page 22: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

2 types of theistic evolutionism

Deism – God produces organisms via the evolutionary process and then never intervenes in what happens.

An interventionist God – God produces organisms via the evolutionary process and sometimes intervenes in what happens.

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Page 23: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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2 types of Theistic Evolutionism Deism (D) and the Interventionist Model (I)

complex adaptive (D) God the evolutionary process features of organisms

complex adaptive (I) God the evolutionary process features of organisms

Page 24: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Outline

1 What is Evolutionary Theory?

2 God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2

3 Guided Mutations

4 Darwin’s views on God and Christianity

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Page 25: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Theism and mutations

• Evolutionary theory says that mutations are “unguided.”

• Does this mean that the theory denies that God influences which mutations occur?

Page 26: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Guided mutations and evolutionary theory

• What do biologists mean by saying that mutations are unguided or undirected or random?

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Page 27: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Guided mutations and evolutionary theory

• What do biologists mean by saying that mutations are unguided or undirected or random?

• This does not mean that they are uncaused.

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Page 28: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Guided mutations and evolutionary theory

• What do biologists mean by saying that mutations are unguided or undirected or random?

• This does not mean that they are uncaused.

• It means that they do not occur because they would be useful to the organism.

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Page 29: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Some blue organisms are placed into

a green environment, others into a red.

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An experiment

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Page 30: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Some blue organisms are placed into

a green environment, others into a red.

Protective coloration is advantageous. In a green

environment, green organisms survive better

than red organisms. In a red environment,

the reverse is true.

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An experiment

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Page 31: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Environment is

red green

red f1 f2

Mutate to

green f3 f4

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Look at the frequencies with which blue organisms mutate to …

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Page 32: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Environment is

red green

red f1 ≈ f2

Mutate to ≈ ≈

green f3 ≈ f4

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the results

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Page 33: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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the conclusion to draw

The probabilities of these mutations are

not affected by the fact that one would

be better for the organism than the other.

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Page 34: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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the conclusion to draw

The probabilities of these mutations are

not affected by the fact that one would

be better for the organism than the other.

This conclusion does not rule out the idea

that God causes everything.

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Page 35: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

• Coins do not land heads or tails because this would

be good for gamblers.

• Mutations do not occur because they would be

good for organisms.

Both claims are consistent with

God’s causing everything.35

an analogy: mutations and coin tosses

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Page 36: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

• Tossing coins and seeing whether they land heads more

often when this would help gamblers.• Monitoring mutations and seeing whether they occur

more often when they would be good for organisms.

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an analogy: mutations and coin tosses

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Page 37: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

• Tossing coins and seeing whether they land heads more

often when this would help gamblers.• Monitoring mutations and seeing whether they occur

more often when they would be good for organisms.

Neither experiment tests whether

God intervenes in nature.37

an analogy: mutations and coin tosses

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Page 38: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Outline

1 What is Evolutionary Theory?

2 God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2

3 Guided Mutations

4 Darwin’s views on God and Christianity

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Page 39: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Darwin’s views on …

• Theistic Evolution v Creationism

• why special creation is a poor scientific

theory

• whether God exists

• Christianity

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Page 40: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

The Origin begins with a quotationfrom the philosopher William Whewell:

“But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this – we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.”

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Page 41: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

2 views of God’s relation to nature

“But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this – we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.”

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Page 42: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

2 views of God’s relation to nature

“But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this – we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.”

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Page 43: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

the 2 possibilities

God’s 1st decision observation 1

God’s 2nd decision observation 2

(D) … …

God’s nth decision observation n

observation 1

(U) God general laws observation 2

observation n 43

Page 44: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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Which theistic framework did Darwin prefer?

“to my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.” Origin

Page 45: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Darwin was inspired by Newton

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Page 46: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Why Darwin preferred the Unified Model U

“On the ordinary view of the independent creation of each being, we can only say that so it is -- that it has so pleased the Creator to construct each animal and plant.”

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Page 47: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

“On the ordinary view of the independent creation of each being, we can only say that so it is -- that it has so pleased the Creator to construct each animal and plant.”

D thought that special creation is

scientifically empty.

Why Darwin preferred the Unified Model U

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Page 48: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Was Darwin a theist?

“the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man … as the result of blind chance or necessity …I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a theist.” D’s Autobiography

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Page 49: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

But on the next page …

Darwin refers to himself as an “agnostic,” by which he says he means someone “who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward.”

Elsewhere, Darwin describes himself as being in a “muddle.”

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Page 50: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Francis Darwin, quoting his father:

“the mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.”

“I think an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.  The whole subject [of God] is beyond the scope of man's intellect.”

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Page 51: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Darwin on Christianity

In the Autobiography, Darwin describes Christianity as a “damnable doctrine” because it says that his brother, father, and grandfather must suffer everlasting punishment for their lack of belief.

Why didn’t Charles follow the lead of his wife, Emma?

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Page 52: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Darwin on the problem of evil

D and Asa Gray corresponded about the parasitic wasp Ichneumonidae.

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Page 53: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Darwin on the problem of evil

D and Asa Gray corresponded about the parasitic wasp Ichneumonidae. D says in a letter that he can’t persuade himself that “a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created” this arrangement.

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Page 54: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

Darwin on the problem of evil

D and Asa Gray corresponded about the parasitic wasp Ichneumonidae. D says in a letter that he can’t persuade himself that “a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created” this arrangement.

D on the death at age 10 of his favorite daughter, Annie.

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Page 55: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

How to think about whether God exists?

• There are several arguments for the existence of God (the design argument, the first cause argument, the ontological argument, etc).

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Page 56: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

How to think about whether God exists?

• There are several arguments for the existence of God.

• Evil – this is a problem for theism to address.

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Page 57: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

How to think about whether God exists?

• There are several arguments for the existence of God.

• Evil – this is a problem for theism to address.

• There also is the question of whether belief in God should be based solely on evidence, or should be a matter of faith.

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Page 58: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

• There are several arguments for the existence of God.

• The problem of evil.

• Should belief in God be based solely on evidence, or should it be a matter of faith?

Evolutionary theory says nothing

about any of these.

How to think about whether God exists?

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Page 59: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

People v Propositions

Darwin had religious doubts, stemming from the problem of evil.

This doesn’t mean that D’s theory is in conflict with theism (or with Christianity).

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Page 60: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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What is evolutionary theory?

• It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.

• It regards natural selection as an important cause of the diversity we observe.

• It regards mutations as unguided.

Page 61: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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Summary

• Evolutionary theory does not rule out the existence of God.

Page 62: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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Summary

• Evolutionary theory does not rule out the existence of God.

• In fact, the theory is consistent with a God who intervenes in nature, not just with a God who creates nature and then sits back.

Page 63: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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Summary

• Evolutionary theory does not rule out the existence of God.

• In fact, the theory is consistent with a God who intervenes in nature, not just with a God who creates nature and then sits back.

• Believing in a God who created nature, or who sometimes intervenes in it, is no substitute for doing natural science.

Page 64: The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies 2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical.

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“… any confusion between the ideas suggested by science and science itself must be carefully

avoided.”

─ Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity