FOX News, At Least the Title was Right

I was recently sent a link to a FOX News editorial written by "Father Jonathan" a FOX news regular commentator. The title of the piece was called "Intelligent Design: Not Modern Science". You can read it at this link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184953,00.html

In the article, Father Jonathan seems to support the scientific view that Intelligent Design is not a science and should not be taught in science class. Unfortunately he goes on to mischaracterize evolution and its proponents, creating a bit of a straw man called "neo-Darwinism" and suggesting that is also unscientific:

They may say “evolution,” but it’s more than that. They are being taught a very unscientific theory called Neo-Darwinism, the belief that there is NO purpose or intelligence behind life forms, that it’s all random. Where’s the empirical evidence for that? As a matter of fact, it’s impossible to prove, either scientifically or otherwise. It too should go down the hall [to the philosophy department].

This argument is, of course, disengenious and ignores the scientific rigor that is applied to the modern study of Natural Selection and Evolution which supported by geology, palentology and molecular genetics forms the basis of all modern Biology.

Since I felt the piece was thus a ruse to discredit evolution, I was compelled to send him the following letter to his FOX news email address:

Dear Father Jonathan,

Though I essentially agree with the title of your column, I would like to point out that Natural Selection is NOT random. It is self-optimizing -- it is anything but random, though random mutations are required to create the continuing set of options from which to optimize. This is a common misunderstanding of the scientific theory which is propagated by ID proponents.

Also, the science of Evolution makes no claims as to the purpose of the Universe. Because of the culture wars, there may more noise from evolution proponents making materialist arguments, but that is their opinion and not part of the science. I know of no science curriculum that espouses a material purposeless Universe as part of its study of Natural Selection and I know of no scientist who despite his personal beliefs and philosophies would argue that Evolution as a science makes any statement regarding the purpose and origins of the life and Universe. Indeed Natural Selection and belief in God are not mutually exclusive, there are many Evolutionists who simply view Natural Selection as a manifestation of God's creation -- including the Catholic Church.

Another complaint I have is of the use of the term "neo-Darwinism". Since Darwin himself made no statements regarding the ultimate origins of life (just the descent of new species), let alone the nature and purpose of the Universe, it is misleading to use the term in the context that you used it. The term "neo" tends to take on an inflammatory tone as in "neo-fascist", "neo-conservative", etc. The proper term for those who believe the Universe has no purpose or is subject only to natural forces is "materialist".

So to sum up: Evolution and Natural Selection should definitely be taught in Science class. Intelligent Design and the opposite materialist purposeless view of the Universe should "move down the hall" to Philosophy class.

Regards,
Alan

P.S. - One illustration of the power of Natural Selection is that of "evolvable hardware", where evolutionary algorithms are used to design things. One experiment at the University of Sussex in England used reconfigurable chips to design a logic circuit that could distinguish a particular audible tone. After about 5000 permutations, they ended up with an astonishingly efficient design. What's more, the researches didn't know how it
worked. It didn't seem possible, yet it did work.

If this kind of sophistication can be achieved after only 5000 permutations, what kinds of things are possible after countless trillions of permutations churning along countless trillions of simultaneous paths? Given that, it seems to me, the complexity we see in the biological world should come as no surprise. (The preceding P.S. text was largely borrowed from a commenter on a post in the Panda's Thumb)

Needless to say, I was disappointed to not receive any response or to see any reader comments of any kind posted below his commentary. Though I can imagine the volume of emails/comments he received was very large as it is on any forum anywhere on the Internet where the ID/Evolution debate is raised.

P.S. - I also refrained from commenting on his snarky remarks about University Professors, perpetuating the meme that all University Professors and curriculums are part of a liberal conspiracy to take down America. Unfortunately, there is a sad modicum of truth feeding that sentiment, but the way Conservatives like to play that card (particularly the conspiracy angle) for the manipulation of their followers is still very disengenious to me.