The Atheist News Podcast

Charles Darwin was 200 years old this February–or, rather, he would have been 200 years old if he hadn’t been ejected from the gene pool in 1882.  Moreover, the 150th anniversary of the publication of his magnum opus, On The Origin of Species, is right around the corner: it was first published on November 24, 1859.  I’m not sure if he’d be shocked or completely nonplussed about the fact that his ideas are still being publically debated today; he was never much for the public intellectual spotlight himself, though, and likely would have been happy to cede his role in the vigorous discourse to Richard Dawkins and the other modern-day Thomas Huxleys of the world.  In the spirit of this auspicious annum, I offer the following book recommendation: Living With Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith, by Professor Philip Kitcher, is absolutely fantastic.

Kitcher is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University (and, in the interest of full disclosure, is your not-so-humble blogger’s advisor, so this review might be biased); he works mostly in philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of literature.  He’s been a strong voice in favor of reason and evolution at least since the publication of his 1982 book Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism, and Living With Darwin marks a triumphant return to that topic.  While he has received less attention than the Dawkins/Harris/Hitchens/Dennett crowd, Kitcher has, it seems to me, produced a work that is far more balanced, thoughtful, and scholastic than any of the work by the “Four Horsemen” (with the exception of Dennett).  Living With Darwin is far less shrill, condescending, and strident than (say) The God Delusion or God Is Not Great.  It is clearly a piece of careful scholarship, not a polemic designed to inflame as many opinions as possible; the whole work drips with the charmingly reserved English-gentleman wit that Kitcher exudes in person.  If you’ve tried some of the works by the “New Atheists” and have found the tone hard to swallow, I’d doubly recommend this book.

Kitcher’s approach is unique with respect to more than just tone, though.  As he points out in the first chapter, the common position to take with regard to the intelligent design/creationism/evolution debate is simply to deny that the first two are science at all–most opponents of intelligent design will argue that it ought to be kept out of the classroom because it fails some unnamed test on the basis of which science can be discriminated from pseudoscience.  Kitcher, with a philosopher’s typical sensitivity to tricky problems like this, disagrees.  He points out (quite rightly, in my opinion) that making this kind of move–the “ID isn’t science” move–requires us to solve a notoriously tricky problem in the philosophy of science: the so-called problem of demarcation. This is no small order.  The demarcation problem–the problem of how and where to draw the boundaries of science so that all cases of “legitimate” science are included within the boundary and all cases of mysticism or pseudoscience are excluded–is one that philosophers and scientists alike have wrestled with for centuries now.  Even some of the giants of the field–Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn for instance–have found themselves stymied by this problem.  Perhaps surprisingly, it turns out that this line is very difficult to draw in a consistent and not ad hoc way: it is difficult, that is, to articulate a general criterion (or even a general set of criteria) which invariably lines up with our intuitions about what should be science and what shouldn’t be.  Most people immediately go for testability as a criterion, for instance, but that would seem to exclude much of what theoretical physics does.  The problem is likely not insoluble (I’m inclined to think that very few puzzles are unsolvable), but it is difficult enough that I think Kitcher is wise for trying to find a way to make the evolutionist point without leaning on a tacit solution to the demarcation problem.

This, then, is Kitcher’s move in the game: let us admit (if only for the sake of discussion) that both intelligent design and young Earth creationism might count as valid scientific theories (whatever those might turn out to be); still, however, that is not enough to get them into the science classroom.  There are many theories that have been, in the course of human history, valid scientific theories (the theory of aether as the medium through which light waves propagated, for instance) but which are no longer taught in the science classroom.  Why are they no longer taught?  Precisely because (says Kitcher) they’ve been shown to be incorrect scientific theories; even if we admit that they pass the mysterious demarcation test, we can also admit that they’ve been shown to be false.  They’re science, that is, but they’re bad science.  Kitcher contends that ID and creationism both ought to be counted, along with aether, alchemy, flogiston, astrology, heliocentrism, and a whole host of other dead (but once respectable) theories about how the world might work, as scientific ideas that have, in light of new discoveries, lost their status as “good science.”  This is a clever move, I think, and one that turns out to be immensely profitable for him: it lets him argue that ID and “creation science” might belong in a history of science class (alongside alchemy), but that they have no place in a science classroom, which should communicate only our best–that is, our most explanatorily powerful–theories about the world.

There’s a further strength in that position too, though: it makes for much better public relations.  Rather than accusing the parents pushing for intelligent design in (say) Kansas of being stupid and unscientific, Kitcher takes the more even-handed approach of arguing that almost all of them are well-meaning people who have been taken in by a very few religious and cultural leaders who seek to exploit the debate for their own gain.  As a result of this stance, the book–including its somewhat more polemical final chapter–ends up feeling far less condescending than (say) the work of Dawkins or Hitchens.  Kitcher is happy to operate on the assumption that most people legitimately want the best for their children but, because they lack the education and experience to evaluate the status of one theory relative to another, are being manipulated by politicians and pastors who assure them that intelligent design is on just as firm scientific footing as it ever has been.  Most ID proponents, that is, are neither stupid nor evil, but rather just misguided.

This is not to say that the book is perfect.  Kitcher’s spiritual tolerance, I think, is not entirely misguided–still, I don’t agree with him on all points.  The last chapter is primarily dedicated to advocating a more “spiritual” interpretation of traditional religions; his point is that if we can encourage (say) Christians to hold onto the message of the Bible while throwing out literal interpretations, we can have our cake and eat it too–people can keep their religion, but will cease to try to use it to outcompete scientific explanations.  This spiritually tolerant position is one on which he and I have verbally clashed before, and I still think he’s wrong about it.  Kitcher’s position (both in the book and in person) is that we ought to encourage people to look at religion like they look at poetry–as just a beautiful way of expressing truth about the world, or as metaphor.  He seems to think that this shift can happen rapidly–within a single generation–and that it will largely eliminate the problems with religion.  I disagree.  While I think it might be possible to get to a point like this in the future–a point where we can encourage people to read the Bible and see it as literature with a good message–it seems to me that this shift will not happen unless and until the populace at large recognizes that religious and spiritual explanations for the world are fundamentally bad explanations.  To that end, we ought to strive for the complete elimination of spirituality, not a kind of nebulous middle ground of mutual tolerance and respect.  This is but one flaw in an otherwise very good work, though.

All in all, this book is, I think, incredibly successful.  Kitcher masterfully weaves science, philosophy, history, and social commentary together to create a compelling narrative.  He carefully considers the evidence both for and against intelligent design theory, and rehearses the discoveries in geology, physics, biology, and philosophy that have led all serious thinkers to abandon both ID and creationism as legitimate explanations for the diversity of life.  He shows a great sensitivity to the social and cultural issues surrounding the debate, and takes great care to write in a tone that is both accessible and respectful to all concerned.  The science is simply and clearly presented without being dumbed down, and the philosophy is so woven throughout it all that you’re scarcely aware that you’re reading a professional philosopher at all; technical vocabulary is almost entirely absent, and the tone is conversational.  This book is a must-read for anyone who is concerned about science education, evolution, or religion: it belongs on your shelf next to (or perhaps even in front of) the works of the more well-known atheist authors today.