Finocchio

Daniel Dennett Contra "Intelligent Design"

Writing in today's New York Times, Daniel Dennett takes on the foolish claims of "intelligent design" to the status of scientific theory:

The focus on intelligent design has, paradoxically, obscured something else: genuine scientific controversies about evolution that abound. In just about every field there are challenges to one established theory or another. The legitimate way to stir up such a storm is to come up with an alternative theory that makes a prediction that is crisply denied by the reigning theory - but that turns out to be true, or that explains something that has been baffling defenders of the status quo, or that unifies two distant theories at the cost of some element of the currently accepted view.

To date, the proponents of intelligent design have not produced anything like that. No experiments with results that challenge any mainstream biological understanding. No observations from the fossil record or genomics or biogeography or comparative anatomy that undermine standard evolutionary thinking.

Instead, the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist’s work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a “controversy” to teach.

Note that the trick is content-free. You can use it on any topic. “Smith’s work in geology supports my argument that the earth is flat,” you say, misrepresenting Smith’s work. When Smith responds with a denunciation of your misuse of her work, you respond, saying something like: “See what a controversy we have here? Professor Smith and I are locked in a titanic scientific debate. We should teach the controversy in the classrooms.” And here is the delicious part: you can often exploit the very technicality of the issues to your own advantage, counting on most of us to miss the point in all the difficult details.

William Dembski, one of the most vocal supporters of intelligent design, notes that he provoked Thomas Schneider, a biologist, into a response that Dr. Dembski characterizes as “some hair-splitting that could only look ridiculous to outsider observers.” What looks to scientists - and is - a knockout objection by Dr. Schneider is portrayed to most everyone else as ridiculous hair-splitting.

In short, no science. Indeed, no intelligent design hypothesis has even been ventured as a rival explanation of any biological phenomenon. This might seem surprising to people who think that intelligent design competes directly with the hypothesis of non-intelligent design by natural selection. But saying, as intelligent design proponents do, “You haven’t explained everything yet,” is not a competing hypothesis. Evolutionary biology certainly hasn’t explained everything that perplexes biologists. But intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything.

To formulate a competing hypothesis, you have to get down in the trenches and offer details that have testable implications. So far, intelligent design proponents have conveniently sidestepped that requirement, claiming that they have no specifics in mind about who or what the intelligent designer might be.

And the creationist/intelligent design response to the challenge to engage in responsible, testable science?  The Los Angeles Times reports on efforts to build a creationist theme park.

"We're putting evolutionists on notice: We're taking the dinosaurs back," said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a Christian group building a $25-million creationist museum in Petersburg, Ky., that's already overrun with model sauropods and velociraptors.

"They're used to teach people that there's no God, and they're used to brainwash people," he said. "Evolutionists get very upset when we use dinosaurs. That's their star."

The nation's top paleontologists find the creation theory preposterous and say children are being misled by dinosaur exhibits that take the Jurassic out of "Jurassic Park."

"Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden, and Noah's Ark? Give me a break," said Kevin Padian, curator at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley and president of National Center for Science Education, an Oakland group that supports teaching evolution. "For them, 'The Flintstones' is a documentary."

Radical Islamist Attacks on Gays/Lesbians

Andrew Sullivan has a brief discussion, with links, concerning the increasing assault on gays and lesbians by radical Islamists in the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere.  This is a subject that deserves our attention.

The Pathetic Vileness Of The Ex-Gay Movement

Under the revoltingly parodic name of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), attempts to cloak its hatred of gays and lesbians (and tolerance of and respect for them) in the hypocritical language of "Christian" love.  [In stark contrast, the gay-positive group Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) has been doing important and excellent work for many years].  Salon begins a four-part investigation of PFOX and its allies here.  The New York Times reports on the scandal of such ex-gay "reparative therapy" here.

Mark Benjamin, writing in Salon, reports that:  "Religious conservatives are on a mission to ban more than gay marriage. They want to outlaw civil unions giving same-sex partners some of the legal privileges of married heterosexuals, reinstate state sodomy bans, and defeat hate-crimes legislation that would increase penalties for violence against gays. They are also taking their battle to the states. This spring, the Texas House considered a measure that would have banned gays from becoming foster parents. Opponents argued the measure would uproot 3,000 foster kids. It didn't pass.

The Christian right's political agenda rests on its contention that sex is natural only among heterosexual couples. A sexual preference for partners of your own gender is therefore a psychological disorder and a sin. In the words of the Rev. John J. Smid, who left 'homosexuality and its entanglements in February of 1984,' and is now the executive director of Love in Action International, a reparative therapy group in Memphis, Tenn., people who identify themselves as gay or lesbian are in the hands of the devil: 'Satan, working behind the scenes, has succeeded in redefining the meaning of key words, and therefore we only reinforce and strengthen a false identity by calling individuals by a name that does not apply.'"

Lipstick Lesbian Criticizes Radical Islamists

Irshad Manji, the lipstick lesbian author of The Trouble with Islam, is profiled in The Sunday Times (London) (hat tip: Andrew Sullivan):

"Muslims, adds Manji, must find positive role models rather than jihadists: 'Martyrs are the rock stars of the Muslim world, shown on the internet against a background of funky music. They feed on the self-esteem crisis of young Muslims.' That could be addressed by history lessons paying greater tribute to the Muslim contribution to the Renaissance.

She denounces terrorism and the response to terrorism, which is not sufficiently robust. It is no good, she argues, for respectable Muslims to say 'violence is not the Islamic ideal' if violence has become Islamic practice."

First Same-Sex Marriage Celebrated In Spain

Emilio Menendez and Carlos Baturin German have become the first same-sex couple to be legally married in Spain.  The couple has been together for 30 years.

"'The happiest day of our lives was when we fell in love with each other. We have been together for 30 years, there have been many wonderful days, today is yet another wonderful day,' said Mr Menendez.

[Pedro Zerolo, the government's top official for social issues], said a dream had become reality, as the dignity of homosexuals had been recognised."

Marriage Equality, Religious Freedom And Constitutional Amendments

The most vociferous opposition to marriage equality for gay men and lesbians comes from those who found their objections in religious conviction.  At its most benign, such opposition insists that marriage is, by nature and definition, exclusively between "one man and one woman" (setting aside the historical and biblical inaccuracy of this claim).  Less benignly, the opposition deepens, insisting, against all reason and all evidence, that gay and lesbian persons do not exist, and that homosexuality is merely a behavior, distasteful and sinful.  This position is belied by the vicious intolerance and hostility that its adherents hold toward those whom they identify as being gay or lesbian -- making plain the dishonesty in the claim that it is somehow only behavior that it is the issue.

But an issue that is generally absent in discussions of same sex marriage and GLBT rights generally is that the world's churches and religions do not speak with a single, unified and disapproving voice.  Here, in Philadelphia, with our long Quaker history of tolerance, it is notable that the Society of Friends has long accepted its gay and lesbian members fully and has long blessed gay and lesbian unions.  The Canadian and American Episcopal Churches have made news in recent years by building upon their traditions of acceptance and affirming the value and integrity of gay men, lesbians and their families.  Other denominations and individual congregations have shown similar acceptance of gay families.  Most recently, the United Church of Christ, with 1.3 million members, voted to affirm the church's commitment to equal marriage rights for all couples, regardless of gender (see here and here).

In their statements in support of a proposed federal constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriages (disingeniously couched in terms of merely defining marriage as between "one man and one woman," in order to insist that it is doing something positive, instead of being an amendment seeking to circumscribe the rights of a minority -- gay men and lesbians), the federal marriage amendment is proposed as a conservative measure, preserving the status quo.  But the FMA in fact takes a radical form of action which Americans -- gay or straight -- cannot countenance, much less support, since the FMA employs the Constitution to violate the fundamental principle of religious liberty by federalizing one specific minority view of marriage.  The FMA further violates all principles of federalism, whereby states retain power to legislate and govern in traditionally local and individual matters, marriage being one such area.

Gay men and lesbians are individuals and citizens, little different (no different in most respects) from their fellow citizens.  Gay families are families, like other families.  Gay men and lesbians are religious, are spiritual and are secular as individuals, no different from their brothers and sisters and colleagues and friends and neighbors.  This is far from being a radical or even a minority statement.  On this Independence Day, as we celebrate the beginnings of modern government and the shaking off of the yoke of old burdens, let us remember our commonality, our common humanity, and our common desire to live free and genuine lives.  Out of many, we are one -- on this day of all days, let us remember and honor this basic and essential political principle of tolerance and respect.

The Founders' Beliefs And Nature's God

Jonathan Rowe adds a helpful layer to the discussion and analysis Justice Scalia provides in his dissent in the Ten Commandments cases, looking to the beliefs of the Founders placed in context.

"These Founders did believe in a God, in fact believed that Reason discovered God exists and grants man unalienable rights. But Reason, not Revelation is where the Truth is to be found. And these Founders disbelieved a great deal of Revelation which they regarded as either unreasonable or unproven. And Moses divinely receiving those Commands was one of those Truths about which our Founders were highly dubious.

For instance, here is Jefferson in an 1824 letter to Adams:

Where did we get the ten commandments? [The Bible] itself tells us they were written by the finger of God on tables of stone, which were destroyed by Moses; it specified those on the second set of tables in different form and substance, but still without saying how the other were recovered. But the whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful, that it seems vain to attempt minute inquiry into it; and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the other texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right from the cause to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine.

There is nothing in the writings, or public acknowledgements of any of the other three Presidents that contradict Jefferson's sentiments here. They were all men of Reason. Therefore, if we include the deistic-unitarians in the Lowest Common Denominator of Monotheism, we would have to exclude the notion that the Ten Commandments were divinely given by God.

What we would be left with in our Lowest Common Denominator is this: There is a God; He grants us unalienable rights; He is concerned about human beings and will intervene, especially if we don't respect the unalienable rights of others and nothing more. None of the above four Presidents ever more specifically defined the attributes of God when publicly acknowledging Him.

In other words, the religion that founds our public order is the natural religion of the Founders; "Nature" meaning what is knowable through Reason, not Revelation. This vague natural religion is our civic religion; Revealed religion is to be consigned to the private sphere of society (as Harvey Mansfield, Michael Zuckert and Walter Berns argue that our Founders, after Locke, intended).

Here is another problem for the "Christian Nation" crowd: If we define the attributes of "Nature's God's" too specifically, their consciences will be the next --after the atheists and polytheists -- to be gored. For instance, in his 1813 letter that I am fond of quoting, written in the context of Britain's repeal of a law that made it a crime to deny the Trinity, John Adams writes this to the militant anti-Trinitarian, Thomas Jefferson:

We can never be so certain of any prophecy, or the fulfillment of any prophecy, or of any miracle, or the design of any miracle, as we are from the revelation of nature, that is, nature's God, that two and two are equal to four....This revelation had made it certain that two and one make three, and that one is not three nor can three be one....Had you and I been forty days with Moses on Mount Sinai, and admitted to behold the divine glory, and there been told that one was three and three one, we might not have had the courage to deny it, but we could not have believed it.

What Adams is saying here is quite profound: The same theory -- "the laws of Nature and Nature's God" -- which gives us our principles upon which we erected our government also reveals Nature's God to be unitarian!!! I could offer quotes that demonstrate the unitarianism of Jefferson and Franklin as well. And they together made up a majority of the drafting board of the Declaration of Independence. We could say that the Declaration of Independence refutes Trinitarian Christianity. But there's a problem isn't there? There were many Trinitarian Christians in the nation who supported the Declaration of Independence, the Revolution and Constitution. And they didn't understand Nature's God this way.

The problem is easy avoided by being vague and refusing to identify the attributes of God when publicly invoking Him any more than 1) He exists, 2) He created us and grants us rights, and 3) will Intervene to do Justice. There is no good reason to believe that He gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. Reason never "discovered" or "confirmed" that."

(hat tip: KipEsquire)

"Thou" Shalt

Yesterday's decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court parsing the Establishment Clause in its application to placement of representations of the Ten Commandments on or in public spaces were perhaps less surprising in the majorities' attempts to distinguish between proper and improper uses, but in the bald and virulent statements of the minorities -- and Justice Scalia, in particular -- dismissing concerns for the dangers of mere majority rule.  Prof. Jack Balkin has the sharpest critique of this historically inaccurate and arrogantly absolutist position.

"[I]t is refreshing to have Justice Scalia put his cards on the table:

[T]oday's opinion suggests that the posting of the Ten Commandments violates the principle that the government cannot favor one religion over another. That is indeed a valid principle where public aid or assistance to religion is concerned, [ed.-- Why?] or where the free exercise of religion is at issue, but it necessarily applies in a more limited sense to public acknowledgement of the Creator. If religion in the public square had to be entirely nondenominational, there could be no religion in the public forum at all. One cannot say the word "God," or "the Almighty," one cannot offer public supplication or thanksgiving, without contradicting the beliefs of some people that there are many gods, or that God or the gods pay no attention to human affairs. With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities [does he mean, Deists, like many of the Framers?-- ed.] just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists
. . .
[T]here is a distance between the acknowledgment of a single Creator and the establishment of a religion. The former is, as Marsh v. Chambers put it, "a tolerable acknowledgement of beliefs widely held among the people of this country." The three most popular religions in the United States, Christianity, Judaism and Islam-- which combined account for 97.7% of all believers [do all of the 97.7% believe in a personal God who intervenes in the affairs of mankind?-- ed.]-- are monotheistic. All of them, moreover (Islam included), believe that the Ten Commandments were given by God to Moses, and are divine prescriptions for a virtuous life [Again, do all of the 97.7% actually believe that the Ten Commandments are the actual word of God actually given to Moses on Mount Sinai? What happened to liberal Protestantism and Reform Judaism?-- ed.] Publicly honoring the Ten Commandments is thus indistinguishable, insofar as discriminating against other religions is concerned, from publicly honoring God. [Except, of course, if you are a Christian, Jew or Muslim who doesn't believe in the Bible literally and who may actually be opposed to sects with such views, in which case the government is taking sides in a theological dispute within the various monotheistic religions-- ed.] Both practices are recognized across such a broad and diverse range of the population-- from Christians to Muslims-- that they cannot reasonably be understood as a government endorsement of a religious viewpoint [unless, of course you look at the actual views and theological disputes among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, which Scalia doesn't bother to do-- ed.]

And there you have it. If you aren't a monotheist who believes in a personal God, the government may disregard you. You don't count. We won't persecute you, of course, that would violate the Free Exercise of Religion. But we can disregard you. You are insignificant. You are not us, or perhaps more correctly, we count you as part of us when government acknowledges God, and disregard your protestations to the contrary that you have been left out."

This Year In Jerusalem

Only days after the Jerusalem municipal council, citing concerns that it would incite violence, refused to permit a gay pride celebration to be held in the city this year, Israel's Interior Minister, Ofir Pines, has over-ruled the council, clearing the way for the celebration later this month.

"It was the duty of the municipality 'to allow the right of expression to all those making up the city's population,' Pines said, confirming he would ensure the parade could set off unhampered for what will be its fourth year running."

(hat tip:  Andy Towle)

Islamist Intolerance Menaces NY Gays

Ben Smith and Jessica Bruder, writing in The New York Observer, report an ominous indication that Islamist attacks against gays and lesbians witnessed in Europe over the past several years -- including the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh and the attack on Washington Blade editor Chris Crain, both of which occurred in historically gay-friendly Amsterdam -- may be translating to the U.S. as well:

"The dispute between an irascible lesbian conservative from Queens and a militant new group well on the fringes of the city’s Muslim community might appear to be a marginal conflict. But to New York’s gays and to some of its Muslim leaders, the scene in Jackson Heights bears a worrying similarity to communal conflicts that are challenging the idea of tolerance across Europe, with particular flashpoints in Holland and Scandinavia. There, young immigrants and the children of immigrants have been drawn to a more radical Islamic ideology than that of their parents. On the extreme fringes, these young men have committed acts of violence against Jews and gays, and in a case that shocked Europe, one young Dutchman of Moroccan origin murdered the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in an Amsterdam street.

'It’s almost a cliché to define it like this, but in the end it’s a question of whether you can tolerate intolerance,' said Leon de Winter, a Dutch novelist who has written on the Van Gogh murder. 'We are defending the openness, the diversity of this society against tendencies from other cultures, in which this kind of openness which we celebrate is being regarded as a threat.'

In this conflict, gays have become canaries in the ideological coal mine. Western liberals have tended to cut Muslim groups slack on their ideological pronouncements, in part out of sympathy with some of their causes—the insurgencies in Chechnya and the Middle East, for example—and in part out of a sense that anti-Muslim sentiment in the West is a more pressing problem than anything Muslims themselves might do.

But the rise of gay bashing on European streets has pushed the question of tolerance a step further and led some to question their reflexive defense of a put-upon minority. It has also opened up a heated debate within the gay community, and among liberals in general, over whether the proliferation of intolerant strains of Islam requires liberals in the West to take a harder line on issues like immigration and assimilation."

Challenging Islamist homophobia and violence, in past years, GLBT muslims in the U.S. have participated in San Francisco's gay pride events. 

"Reconciling sexual orientation with religion is something that gay men and women of other faiths have already had to grapple with.

Islam, traditionally a religion of tolerance, is now facing the same considerable challenge."