Steve’s List: Unsurprising Nose Counts
I think I’ve said in this space before that my favorite Linda Seebach columns aren’t those on the topic of evolution. I don’t keep statistics–I’m a Linda fan, not a Linda obsessor–but I’d guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of her columns are on human origins or some closely related scientific topic. As an admiring weekly reader, I can say confidently that evolution is no sterile scientific proposition to Seebach; rather, it animates her in a way out of proportion with the existential impact of your normal, run-of-the-mill scientific explanation of the phenomena. And I understand; I get jazzed about this kind of thing too, albeit from a slightly different perspective.
Two weeks ago her column covered “Steve’s List,” a project of the National Center for Science Education. Linda explains:
People who oppose the teaching of evolution in the schools or who want nonscientific theories such as “intelligent design” to be part of the curriculum are fond of claiming that evolution is “a theory in crisis” and that “growing numbers” of scientists now dispute it.As purported evidence for their claim, they compile lists of scientists - well, some of them are scientists - who agree with them. They are very short lists, compared with the hundreds of thousands of scientists who understand that evolution by natural selection is the foundation of all the biological sciences, but how to make that point to, say, members of state school boards who are neither scientists themselves nor well prepared to evaluate competing claims about what is science and what is not?
Evolutionary biologists’ light-hearted answer: Project Steve.
The National Center for Science Education, whose motto is, “Defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools” (at ncseweb.org - click on “resources” and then the Project Steve box on the right) came up with the idea of parodying the intelligent design lists by making their own list of biologists willing to sign a strong statement in support of evolution, with the only requirement being that their names had to be Steve, or some variation of it (Stephanie or Stefan, for instance).
I believe opponents of evolution should begin by getting one thing out of the way: this is really funny. I won’t explore the reasons here, but jokes have always been funnier when they have the name “Steve” in them. The tribute to late evolutionist Steven Jay Gould is an obvious enough reason for the NCSE to pick the name, but even so, John’s List would have been less funny. Bob’s List would have a shot at the title, but David’s List would have been a complete dud. (Tim’s List? I mean, please.) “Steve’s List” has some serious panache–this is not to be denied. It’s just a good, goofy joke.
And a joke is all the NCSE seems to intend. They claim valiantly to have resisted pressure to generate a list of evolution-affirming scientists in the past, because they “did not wish to mislead the public into thinking that scientific issues are decided by who has the longer list of scientists.” Certainly we appreciate their kind stewardship of the public trust, but in this case Seebach and the list’s creator, Matt Inlay (a contributor at Panda’s Thumb, whose many capable authors will now descend upon me for having the temerity to link critically to them) seem to be taking things an epistemological step further.
Remember that the List was intended as a parody of the practice of my own cobelligerents. As a P.R. measure, Intelligent Design advocates (and perhaps young earth creationists, whom I really don’t keep up with) like to make lists of scientists who dissent from the current scientific orthodoxy by denying that natural mechanisms are sufficient to explain the origin and diversity of life on earth. The purpose of the parody, Linda says, “is to get people, including journalists, to ask, when they see one of the intelligent design lists, ‘How many Steves are on it?’ The answer highlights just how tiny a percentage of scientists the intelligent design lists represent.” The current NCSE Steve count is 435, including Stefans (less funny that Steve) and Stephanies (not funny at all, but a very nice name). Matt Inlay says I.D. has nine Steves to its credit, none a biologist. Linda quotes him:
If I were a parent whose children were entering high school, and I kept reading in the news that many scientists thought evolution was a theory in crisis and that students were being prevented from hearing about this controversy by dogmatic Darwinists, I would want to know that in reality, 99 percent of scientists support evolution, and only an insignificant minority question it.
It’s entirely possible that Dr. Inlay will end up reading this, so let me say now that I’m quite sure he doesn’t really believe that scientific proof consists in nose-counting. If questioned, I’m certain he would deny that he meant that, and would clarify his words to remove any doubt. However this quote, and the tenor of the piece in the Rocky Mountain News, very much suggest a different approach. It is very simple: more respectable scientists, including an especially damning supermajority of biologists, are Darwinists. Go away, I.D.
Now, busy non-experts always defer to authority to answer hard questions, and if the experts disagree, nothing could be more American than letting the majority decide what is true. In all honesty, that horrible procedure is sometimes all we have time for, and maybe this is why Dr. Inlay invoked the scenario of parents making educational decisions for their teen-agers. Harried, overcommitted, 40-something parents can hardly be expected to be au courrant of very much scientific literature. Perhaps we can accept this, being comforted that in the halls of academia ideas can be hashed out without regard for who holds the power and what idea is in favor in the majority. Of course we will be told that these decisions are made based on purely rational assessments of the evidence according to the canons of a metaphysically neutral thing called Science, but hey. That’s why I don’t have a Panda’s Thumb tee-shirt and bumper sticker.1 (Note to Panda’s Thumb guys: open Café Press shop now. Subtract hosting costs from the earnings, then divide up the profit using a formula that accounts for number of posted words, number of trackbacks, and number of comments generated. It’ll be solid gold.)
More to the point, Intelligent Design advocates are painfully well aware that their views are not in the majority in scientific academia. Not much of a point is proved by showing that the overwhelming majority of scientists are Darwinists. We know this. We have to contend with some of the most brilliant minds in the world who are deeply committed to the system we are trying to unseat. We do not shrink from the challenge, but we don’t exactly find it necessary to remind ourselves that we face it. Even small-time bloggers have to consider this when [respectfully] sticking their finger in the eye of respected editorialists and well-read public advocates of Darwinism: breathe, and a bunch of smart people are going to jump on you.
Intelligent discussions of origins have become fundamentally discussions of epistemology and metaphysics, not primarily of observations, and certainly not of nose-counting. They ought not focus all their energy on the evidence itself, about whose basic grammar there seems to be substantial agreement. They ought not focus on how many people share naturalistic or theistic conclusions, since nobody in the discussion thinks (out loud, in public) that the mob should rule. After all if, as Design theorists ought to admit, Darwinism is a justifiable conclusion proceeding from Naturalistic assumptions, then why shouldn’t most biologists be Darwinists, if in fact most Darwinists are Naturalists? There seems to be little to learn from looking at the pie chart.
Hence the commonly tolerated, time-saving argument from authority is not really all that helpful here. All of the non-expert parents of public school students might normally want to defer to the Academy on this, but to whom are they deferring? To brilliant subject matter experts trained to make meticulous observations of obscure phenomena, and to make careful inferences from their observations in the legitimate pursuit of knowledge? Yes. To inveterate naturalists, opposed with occasionally religious fervor and often snide disdain to the introduction of intelligent agency into the universe of scientific discourse? Again, all too often, yes. Ask an atheist biologist (or an evangelical biologist laboring under the self-imposed constraints of methodological naturalism–if you can find an evangelical biologist), and you’re pretty much guaranteed to get an answer consistent with the metaphysical or epistemological commitments she’s made. And that scientist is almost certainly not a specialist in these matters. A smart person, certainly; a well-read person, maybe. But we do not leave it to biologists to tell us what is ultimately real or how we can know things.
How many Steves would agree? I have no idea, and I won’t be compiling a list anytime soon.
1I would, of course, drink from a Pharyngula Nalgene. That would be totally different.
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- Posted by Tim on Wednesday, June 30, 2004 at 12:43:36 am PDT
- Category: Miscellany
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12 Responses to “Steve’s List: Unsurprising Nose Counts”
I’m liking that quote more and more: “I would want to know that in reality, 99 percent of scientists support evolution, and only an insignificant minority question it.” Questioning naturalism is not only a minority position, but an “insignificant” minority. That’s for the philosophical clarity, Steves!
I like that sentiment even more because of the way it changes the rules of discourse. Of course, if we are talking high school, then the consensus of the masses carries much weight. You would definately not want your lil’ freshman to be exposed to any ideas outside what the Bulk of The Peers (even the really smart ones, or the ones wearing the spiffiest lab coats) holds to be valuable and true. Such openness would undermine the very moral fabric of the institution.
But regarding discourse, it tongue-in-cheek makes the minority position wrong (and “insignificant”) entirely because it is the minority position. A nice bit of circular reasoning, that.
Comment Permalink | Posted on June 30th, 2004 at 9:14 am |BTW, David’s List would remain just as funny, but would carry with it the seriousness of the topic at hand as well as the grandeur of the Academy. But you are right about a Tim’s list. I mean, c’mon.
As for Steves being funny, you’ve also got Hey! Steve! of the Hey Steve fame.
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 2nd, 2004 at 12:20 pm |Mr Berglund, you might want to keep in mind that Project Steve was not conceived as an argument from authority, but rather as a refutation of one. If you doubt me, simply check the continual spin that the Discovery Institute applies to its own much smaller, not-limited-to-Steves list. I’m talking about the one that they purchased advertisements in major newspapers to brag about. The one that’s glowingly mentioned in nearly everything that the DI publishes, and is always used to imply that there’s a large (and growing, it is often claimed) number of scientists who are abandoning “Darwinism” and are going over to the ID camp.
There are many reasons why the list is unpersuasive in that regard, but the point of Project Steve was to show that collecting dozens signatures from people with PhDs doesn’t change the fundamental fact that ID has effectively zero support among scientists. If that’s irrelevant, then fine — the DI should just say so and quit trotting out their silly list every single press release. Until they do, there will be Project Steve to provide people with some much needed perspective.
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 2nd, 2004 at 5:06 pm |For those of us past a certain age, “Hi ho, Steverino!” never fails to invoke a fit of the giggles. How come we couldn’t find a “Steverino” for that damned list?
RBH
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 2nd, 2004 at 9:07 pm |Steve:
Thanks much for the comment. Don’t let it be your last.
The part where I said, “Remember that the List was intended as a parody of the practice of my own cobelligerents,” was the part where I acknowledged that ID people do this. Now, the Discovery Institute’s ads may or may not be defensible, and I will not be drawn into a defense of them here. Perhaps, based on what they intend to communicate through those ads, they are a worthless contribution to the discussion and should be abandoned. If this were the case, I would be happy to see them dropped. I would be less happy about trading tu quoque defenses of one another’s tribal genealogies–and not just because yours is bigger.
Again, I do not accuse Steve’s List itself of any fallacy. It is clearly a bit of appreciated humor intended to make a point, with explicit qualifications given that we do not make scientific inferences based on nose counts. However, Dr. Inlay’s comments in Linda’s column seem to take the idea in a different direction, one which I attempted to discuss in my post. Inlay and Seebach certainly seem to think the preponderance of scientific opinion should affect the conclusions we draw.
And remember, I do allow for the practical reality that we all make private arguments from authority. There’s just too much subject matter in the world to think we can make informed evaluations of every claim on its own merits, especially where non-experts are concerned. Hence it might be handy for the layman to know what the experts think; it’s just that the experts in this case (biologists) are not necessarily experts in the issues that are really being decided here. This, at least, was the idea I was attempting to float.
By the way, I appreciate your scare quotes around “Darwinism.” Do you guys have a word that you prefer for purposes of this discussion? “Evolutionist” sounds awfully political to me, and “Darwinism” sounds simplistic, if not inaccurate. I’d use an alternative if I knew of a good one. (As an aside that is probably completely uninteresting to you, this same problem attends a particular theological debate between evangelicals regarding the ordination of women to ecclesiastical office. Labels are required to support concise conversation, but no non-lame labels exist. Life is hard.)
RBH:
Good point! I would probably surrender my whole argument if it had just one. (Although I confess I am not old enough to get the joke.)
Thanks for posting.
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 5th, 2004 at 7:18 am |Hey, wait a second…is it any coincidence that the only Panda’s Thumb contributor to respond to this post is Steve Reuland? This isn’t just some Steve thing, is it? I have to assume his name is on that list. Is he just defending it out of some kind of crass Steve chauvinism?
I knew it! The conspiracy of the Darwinist academy is exposed yet again!
:)
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 5th, 2004 at 7:24 am |Tim –
“complementarian” and “egalitarian” aren’t good enough for ya?
Granted, the first is a bit clunky, but it’s at least a self-designation, and the second seems to fit the bill of accurate and non-pejorative.
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 5th, 2004 at 10:08 am |pentamom:
I hate the term “complimentarian.” It’s totally clunky. “Egalitarian” is actually just fine, but that helps me very little.
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 5th, 2004 at 10:18 am |Hi Tim, good comments.
“However, Dr. Inlay’s comments in Linda’s column seem to take the idea in a different direction, one which I attempted to discuss in my post. Inlay and Seebach certainly seem to think the preponderance of scientific opinion should affect the conclusions we draw.”
I see what you’re getting at. I’m fairly certain that Matt’s take on the matter is a bit more nuanced than a short quote in a brief editorial can accurately convey. If you asked him, I don’t doubt that he would say that mere authority shouldn’t drive our conclusions (other than in a practical manner, as you mention).
My own view is that school boards at least should follow the consensus of the experts, and should do so for every subject, because it’s extremely unlikely that they have either the time or the background knowledge to fairly judge culturally contentious issues. And I think that’s probably what Matt was getting at in the section where he’s quoted above. I can’t speak for him though.
“…it’s just that the experts in this case (biologists) are not necessarily experts in the issues that are really being decided here. This, at least, was the idea I was attempting to float.”
Well, ID hasn’t exactly taken the philosophical world by storm either, so I don’t know that it matters much which experts we’re talking about. And while I understand that there are issues of epistemology that get raised, I think much of it is contrived and not really all that contentious. I mean, try critiquing meteorology or medicine by complaining about “naturalistic presuppositions”, and see how long it takes you to get laughed off the stage. I for one have never heard a good reason why accusations of naturalism should be limited to evolutionary biology, and not applied to every other branch of science.
“By the way, I appreciate your scare quotes around “Darwinism.” Do you guys have a word that you prefer for purposes of this discussion? “Evolutionist” sounds awfully political to me, and “Darwinism” sounds simplistic, if not inaccurate. I’d use an alternative if I knew of a good one.”
Well, that makes you a lot more considerate than most ID advocates.
The best term is “modern evolutionary biology”, but that’s awfully hard to say in one breath. I honestly don’t know a good short term. “Evolutionist” is ironically one that gets used a lot by proponents of evolutionary biology, such as Johnathan Weiner in The Beak of the Finch, which I just finished reading. But everytime I saw the word, it still made me cringe. Things are further complicated by the fact that people who are proponents of evolutionary theory, which are most educated people, are not necessarily the ones who study it. When Weiner used the term “evolutionist”, he was referring to evolutionary biologists. But when creationists use the term, they refer to anyone who accepts evolution. Even still, it’s better than “Darwinist”, which is loaded and partly inaccurate as you note.
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 8th, 2004 at 8:19 am |Steve:
It would be nice if Matt would jump in. I suspect what you say is correct, but further speculation will probably not be fruitful. I will say that to make me walk away from this with a smile on my face, a partial retraction of his quoted words would be helpful, but I’m not holding my breath.
I have to admit that I don’t know the state of the art among philosophers in the ID debate, so I’ll defer to your statement that ID doesn’t hold much favor among them. I would that this were not so, but in my defense, the man in the street probably wouldn’t want to do the Private Argument From Authority thing with a philosopher anyway. Maybe this is a bad thing–they’re trained thinkers after all, and learned in the history of theoretical thought–but when it comes down to questions of Ultimate Reality and Knowing Things, Americans normally seem content to be their own experts. These are very important questions that touch on the things that have the power to keep us up at night. No, reason can’t take a back seat in the discussion, and no, individuals don’t get to invent their own true answers to the questions, but few (say) nominal theists are willing to drop their commitment to theism at the urging of an expert. The case for naturalism may be similar, and I would expect laypeople to decide differently on the educational merits of ID and evolution if the issues were framed philosophically, rather than as purely scientific issues cloaked in layers of technical subject matter. I think ID’s seat at the public table is more secure when the problem is viewed in terms of core philosophical commitments rather than the preponderance of current scientific opinion.
Regarding me being more considerate than most ID advocates, you give me an idea for a new tag line: “TimBerglund.com: Because you shouldn’t have to be any more irritated than absolutely necessary.” (This would replace “TimBerglund.com: Because it feels so good when you stop.”)
I think we’d agree that there is no one handy label that avoids unnecessary politics or simplifications, so we’ll probably just have to live with the words we have while self-consciously downplaying any unnecessary negatives associated with them. Please know that if I ever say “Darwinist,” I’m not trying to pin all the writings of Chuck D.* on anyone living today. That said, modern evolutionary biology certainly preserves the legacy of Charles Darwin in some meaningful sense, and it is this idea that I would want to convey by using the label, not some kind of fixation on the man himself. I may try to stick to “evolutionist” instead, if we can agree that I don’t mean “evolution booster” or “evolution partisan” unless I specifically say so. Which I may do, as that is a meaningful part of the discussion–but only sometimes, and only intentionally. I don’t mean to imply it by default.
(As an aside, I would appreciate it greatly if you guys would quit saying “Intelligent Design Creationism.” I don’t know if you do it personally, but it seems like I read it at Panda’s Thumb often enough. Maybe it’s technically accurate–although I don’t know that it always is–but it certainly evokes memories of the 1980s political battles over “Creation Science” and its attendant young-earth commitments. The term is almost certainly intended to be pejorative, and if leading ID theorists don’t ascribe the term to themselves, you probably shouldn’t use it as a matter of course.)
Some of this clearly needs to be broken off into its own post. Don’t feel the need to keep after everything in the comments section if you need to be moving on to other things, especially if I continue to lack the time to be concise.
*Didn’t know he was a rapper too, did you?
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 10th, 2004 at 10:30 pm |Hi Tim, forgive the lateness of my reply; I hope it doesn’t get lost since it’s on such an old thread.
Only Matt knows what Matt meant, so I’m afraid I can’t elaborate any more on that. Since the issue has kind of faded, I doubt that he’s going to come over and explain himself. I do know that he’s more or less “conservative” with his views on the subject, so it would be out of character for him to invoke the argument from authority as an arbiter of truth (as opposed to say, good policy, which I think arguments from authority are legitimate for).
As for the issue of ID being a primarily philosopical issue, I have no problem with that in general. Except for two:
First, most ID advocates, at least when communicating to a general audience, do not say that ID is a form of philosophy. They say it’s a scientific theory. And while I appreciate that the demarcation problem may be intractable, IDists usually pretend as if there’s a clear distinction between science and philosophy, and that ID clearly sits on the science side of the fence. As a matter of fact, they often use term “philosophy” as a kind of pejorative, accusing evolution of being philosophical rather than scientific, as if that alone were enough to discredit it. So as I see it, there’s a massive problem of equivocation with the way the ID movement argues that ID is a science, except it’s a philosophy, and philosophy is bad, but then again it’s what ID is all about. It’s hard to critque a constantly moving target.
And the second point is that philosophically speaking, evolutionary theory is no different than any other science, at least as far as epistemology is concerned. Sure, “darwinism” doesn’t postulate divine intervention, but then again no other branch of science does either. And this is in spite of the fact that folk wisdom often invoked divine intervention as an explanatory agent, as for example, when it came to the causes of disease. Nearly every philosophical critque of evolution that I’ve seen coming from the ID camp would just as easily apply to every other branch of science, so it seems as if the “philosophy of ID” has a much larger advesary than its proponents care to take on. Who wants to argue that doctors are a bunch of deluded fools for rejecting the notion that God causes the flu?
I agree with you completely about the term “Intelligent Design Creationism“. It’s needlessly loaded, and I myself have never used it. Although, at least on a sociological level, the ID movement is obviously a subset of the larger creationist movement, so much so that it’s nearly indistinguishable. Nonetheless, ID advocates aren’t necessarily creationists, so the term unfairly categorizes people. I suspect that the temptation to use it is so strong because the ID movement has tried its best to distance itself from creationism while simultaneously courting its adherents. ID critics don’t want them to get a free pass on that (and they shouldn’t), but I think it’s better just to explain the state of affairs rather than to stick labels on people.
Oh, and I wasn’t aware that Charles Dawwin was a rapper. I’ve been told that he’s responsbile for Nazism, Communism, environmentalism, anti-environmentalism, capitalism, Marxism, and tooth decay. But rap music? That’s a bit unfair.
:)
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 17th, 2004 at 11:44 am |Your reply is late, my reply to your reply is late…I think all is forgiven. Let me graciously provide the last word, since the discussion is indeed winding down, and hey, it’s my blog anyway.
I should clarify that I don’t mean to say that ID is properly considered philosophy; I would stand right alongside its primary defenders in calling it science. However, this is a rather controversial assertion, and one whose answer is fundamentally not obtainable through science. It seems that a beating with the Gödel stick awaits those who would say otherwise. (If I am correct in thinking of science as an axiomatic system. If I am not, then you probably still get the point.)
So we rely on philosophical tools to define the boundaries of what we call “science,” and we use the same tools to argue the merits of the competing definitions. I say ID is science, not philosophy, but to defend the assertion I probably use tools from philosophy more than from science. I daresay there is no other credible option.
I’ll leave your comments on intelligent causation and the flu, because that all really goes to the heart of the debate, and we’re trying to let this thread drop. It would be great to take it up some time later.
Thanks for agreeing on the never-to-be-repeated-here IDC Label. No sense in inflaming each other needlessly, eh?
Finally, Darwin also causes my shoulders not to be as broad as I’d like, Steven Jay Gould (still!) makes the bird sing less than they should, and Paul Myers caused my PC to lock up earlier today. It’s pretty much all your fault.
Comment Permalink | Posted on July 22nd, 2004 at 11:11 pm |