Bioethics Forum

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Bioethics Forum 2008: Evolution in the 21^st Century
Closing Remarks (Revised): Robert Streiffer (Bioethics Forum Moderator)
rstreiffer@wisc.edu

I said at the outset of the program that Karin Borgh had done a remarkable job, yet again bringing together a wonderful and diverse group of speakers. I’m pleased to report that I haven’t changed my mind. Once again, thanks to Karin, and all the staff here at BTCI and all of the sponsors of this year’s Bioethics Forum.

The topics covered this year, evolution and the scientific, conceptual, philosophical, political, and ethical questions it raises, are not topics typically covered in journals or classes that go under the title of “bioethics”. But the themes that ran throughout this year’s forum are in many ways the very same themes that have been present in the previous Bioethics Forums. We’ve had so many great speakers with so much information that it would be futile for me to even attempt to review or summarize everything, but I want to close today by remarking on two of these themes, themes that ran throughout this year’s Forum and also, in their own way, through each of the previous forums.

The first theme I want to highlight is the sharing of accurate scientific information, one of the main goals of BTCI as an institution. How is the theory of evolution understood by scientists today and what is the evidence for the theory, so understood? How does the theory of evolution relate to other areas of scientific inquiry: geology, genetics, cosmology, astronomy. As you heard, Charles Darwin published his book, The Origin of Species, in 1859. It received a mixed reaction. Francis Morris, a British ornithologist and clergyman, wrote in 1877: “If the whole of the English language could be condensed into one word, it would not suffice to express the utter contempt those invite who are so deluded as to be disciplines of such an imposture as Darwinism.” Adam Sedgwick gave the book a more upbeat review, writing to Darwin that the book made him laugh until his sides were sore. But as Professors Geary and Carroll and others have wonderfully explained, the theory of evolution has survived, and is indeed flourishing. The twin pillars of the theory of evolution—the proposition that all living organisms had a common ancestor and the proposition that species evolved through natural selection—are overwhelmingly supported by the existing and growing evidence from the fossil record, biogeography, genetics, and the morphology and development of living organisms.

What are the implications? As Sean Carroll said, “What’s all the fuss about?” Well, the 64 thousand dollar question is, of course, the following: Does the truth about evolution imply that theists are rationally required to give up their belief in God? Is the evidence that rationally mandates belief in evolution also evidence against the existence of God? Well, as I think was made clear from Professor Number’s talk yesterday, and the panel on evolution and the Abrahamic religious traditions, and Steve Paulson’s interview with John Haught, it does not. Or, to put it more carefully, it does not without the addition of several other propositions, propositions that I would characterize as theological propositions, propositions that do not fall within the purview of science (and so are propositions about which scientists do not, qua scientists, have the expertise to evaluate), propositions that are not essential to many widespread conceptions of God.

Allow me to illustrate with an example. Sean Carroll said that the evidence for evolution he discussed showed that “Diversity is not a matter of design—what designer designs non-functional genes?”. The argument behind that statement can be made more explicit in the following way. First proposition,  the natural diversity we observe includes non-functional genes (that’s a scientific proposition). Second proposition:  if there were a designer, then non-functional genes would exist only if the designer made them; Third proposition: no designer would make non-functional genes. Those propositions together logically entail the conclusion that there is no designer.

Focus on the second and third propositions: the proposition that if there were a designer, then non-functional genes would exist only if the designer made them, and the proposition that no designer would make non-functional genes. Whether or not these propositions are true is a theological question, not a scientific question. And while these two propositions may well be true on some very particular and specific conceptions of the kind of designer at issue, there are, as several of our speakers have pointed out, lots of other conceptions of God as designer according to which at least one of those propositions would be false. So this particular bit of evidence, the existence of genetic fossils, only constitutes evidence against the existence of a designer on very particular conceptions of what that designer is like, conceptions that are not themselves mandated by the scientific evidence, and conceptions not shared by many other theists.

The flip side of this, though, is that the evidence for evolution does constitute evidence, indeed, it constitutes overwhelming evidence, against those specific conceptions of God as the designer with which it is inconsistent. And this leads us to the second theme I want to discuss.

The second theme common to the Bioethics Forums is the importance of addressing public policy issues in a way that productively resolves the tension between the need to base public policy on accurate information, scientific or otherwise (e.g., historical, sociological), and the need to develop democratically legitimate policy that appropriately respects diverse opinions. In our context the controversy is focused on two related issues about the curricula in the public classroom: the teaching of the theory of evolution and the teaching of various flavors of creationism or intelligent design. Professor Numbers posed a dilemma with regard to these questions that I want to try to resolve: do the principles that prohibit the teaching of creationism or intelligent design also prohibit the teaching of the theory of evolution? The dilemma arises in the following way.

The NSF notes that while only 44% of Americans believe that humans beings developed from earlier species of animals, 74% of Americans recognized that, according to the theory of evolution, human beings developed from earlier species of animals. The NSF interprets these data as showing that “many Americans hold religious beliefs that cause them to be skeptical of established scientific ideas, even when they have some basic familiarity with those ideas.” These people believe that evolution is inconsistent with their religious beliefs. Judge Jones in Kitzmiller v Dover found that it was unconstitutional to teach intelligent design because “the overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.” Now, as a sidebar: I am someone who teaches philosophy and am in a department with historians of medicine and science, and I’m startled to hear that whether or not a theory counts as a scientific theory is relevant to whether it can constitutionally be taught in public schools. I teach non-scientific theories every semester. Perhaps the issue is not about public schools in general, but about science classes in public schools: science teachers should only be teaching science in a science class. But that’s not right either. The ethics and politics of stem cell research, the ethics of human subjects research, the history of scientific discovery; these are all appropriate, non-scientific issues that, should be taught in science classes in public schools.

What is really doing the work here, of course, is not the claim that ID is not a scientific theory, but that ID is a religious view. But if intelligent design is a religious view, and if it is inconsistent with the theory of evolution, then the following question arises: does teaching the theory of evolution in a public school itself amount to the government’s taking a position on a religious issue? Consider an example: It would be illegitimate to argue against including a religious text in a state curriculum on the grounds that it is true, but isn’t it also illegitimate to argue against including it on the grounds that it is false? Just as the government should not endorse any particular religious view, so too should it not denounce any particular religious view. Right?

Well, the greatest political philosopher of the 20^th century, John Rawls, famously argued that in order for a governmental decision to be legitimate, it must be justifiable in terms that are consistent with the reasonable worldviews (what Rawls called “reasonable comprehensive doctrines”) of the citizens bound by those decisions. The government should not “attack or criticize any reasonable comprehensive doctrine”, but should justify its decisions in terms that fall within an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. It should be neural among those reasonable comprehensive doctrines that we inevitably find within a free society. Would Rawls’ view of state neutrality on religious issues require the removal, not just of intelligent design from the public school curriculum, but also the removal of the theory of evolution?

I think the answer is no. Rawlsian neutrality is restricted to neutrality among what he called “reasonable” worldviews, and not all worldviews are reasonable. Worldviews that deny the political equality of all citizens, for example, are not reasonable and public policy may be justified in terms that contradict such inegalitarian views. More generally, worldviews that are inconsistent with the fundamental principles of justice are excluded. And, important for our purposes, worldviews that are epistemically unreasonable  are also excluded. Even if it were an important belief in some widespread religion that 2 + 2 = 5, that view is epistemically unreasonable, and public policy can be legitimately justified on grounds that contradict that belief. Asking others to accommodate such a view is asking too much, and goes beyond what can be reasonably expected of our political equals. Similarly, those particular theistic conceptions that are inconsistent with the overwhelming evidence for evolution are ipso facto epistemically unreasonable. And therein lies the way out of the dilemma. Theistic conceptions of god that are reasonable must be consistent with the overwhelming evidence for evolution, and so teaching evolution does not contradict them. And theistic conceptions of god that are inconsistent with the overwhelming evidence for evolution are, by that very fact, unreasonable, and so public policy does not have to be neutral with respect to them. To fail to accommodate such epistemically unreasonable views does not fail to show appropriate respect for diverse opinions.

I now am happy to invite you to conclude the conference with dessert out in the lobby.