Dennis Venema Gets ID Wrong (Again)
| September 7, 2011 | Posted by Thomas Cudworth under Intelligent Design |
Dennis Venema, the “heavy hitter” of Biologos when it comes to evolutionary theory — hands up, professors of evolutionary biology at Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, etc., if you have heard of Dennis Venema — has recently issued some remarks about ID in an interview. The remarks can be found on the website of Rachel Held Evans, a pleasant and personally engaging writer and former student of English who has in the past served as a sort of lay cheerleader for the Biologos project.
In the interview, Venema says:
‘The ID Movement is a “Big Tent” approach for all and sundry who reject at least some part of evolutionary biology. As such, there are Young-Earth Creationists, Old-Earth Creationists, and others within the movement. The main ID view is that some features of life are too complex to be the result of evolution, thus indicating that they were “designed” – a word that functions as the equivalent of “created” within this group.’
There are errors and misleading statements in this paragraph which are bound to generate multiple confusions in the readers of the article.
Regarding the first sentence, it is true that ID is a “Big Tent” movement in the sense that it includes people of varying views on a number of issues. But the subsequent sentence is materially misleading because of what it omits. After mentioning two groups of “Creationists” it adds “and others” without specifying that some of those “others” are evolutionists, for example, one of the leaders of ID, Michael Behe. Richard Sternberg, an associate of ID and an ID theorist in the broad sense, is also an evolutionist, and former Discovery Fellow Michael Denton, clearly a design theorist even if he dislikes the label “ID,” is an evolutionist as well. Many of the commenters here on UD are also evolutionists — they just happen to be evolutionists who accept design. So right away, by failing to mention these people, Venema subtly perpetuates the error that ID is inherently “creationist” in the popular sense of excluding belief in evolution. This “omission” by a seasoned debater like Venema cannot have been accidental and is a shameless rhetorical tactic.
The third sentence makes more explicit the misdirection that is implicit in the second. “Some features of life are too complex to be the result of evolution.” No ID theorist would have written that sentence. An ID theorist would have said: “Some features of life display an integrated complexity which would be difficult if not impossible to achieve via the mechanisms of Darwinian evolution.” Venema fails to “get” what ID theorists have told him scores of times, in their books and in comments on Biologos and elsewhere, that it is the Darwinian mechanism which is incompatible with ID, not “evolution.” One can believe in “evolution” while rejecting the Darwinian mechanism as evolution’s main driver.
To see this clearly, we have to ask: in the Darwinian model of evolution, where does novelty come from? It doesn’t come from natural selection. Natural selection can only prune. The novelty comes entirely from the supposedly random mutations. Random mutations are supposed to be able to accumulate gradually to produce not only tiny point changes that confer antibiotic resistance, but multiple changes which produce major alterations in the body plans of living creatures. This view, which was the view championed by Mayr, Dobzhansky, and others of the Modern Synthesis, is the view Venema was taught in school and the view which he accepts. But it has been heavily criticized by a number of evolutionary biologists who have much more special training in evolution than Venema has. Lynn Margulis, a major player in evolutionary theory, scoffs at the idea that major novelty emerges from gradual accumulation of random mutations. Numerous other cutting-edge evolutionary theorists, including most recently James Shapiro of the University of Chicago, have seriously criticized the Darwinian position. Thus, Venema does not realize (or at any rate fails to acknowledge) that the criticism of Darwinism made by many ID theorists is also made by many professional biologists who are completely committed to “evolution.” For him to speak and write publically about evolutionary theory without being aware of the mounting critique of Darwinian mechanism within the field is nothing less than intellectually irresponsible; and if he knows of this mounting critique, his suppression of it is nothing less than intellectually dishonest.
Venema says that “designed” functions as an equivalent of “created” in ID. This is not true. In ID theory “designed” means “caused by intelligence” as opposed to “produced by chance, or by a combination of chance and necessity, without any input from intelligence.” “Created” is another notion entirely, which identifies the designer with God. But the identification of the designer with God is not part of ID as such. Most ID proponents are Christians, and almost all ID proponents are theists, but when they identify the designer with the God of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, they are speaking as religious believers, not as design theorists.
Venema confuses “detecting that something is designed” with “believing that the designer is the Creator God.” I can believe that the layout of Stonehenge was designed without believing that it was created by God and without having the slightest idea who built it. I can believe that life on earth was designed without deciding whether it was manufactured technologically by alien biochemistry students or created by God. Of course, ID proponents have clarified this in hundreds of places in their books, on the internet and so on, but evidently Venema can’t be bothered to read what they write (which often seems to be the case with his Biologos colleagues, Falk, Giberson, and Collins), or he doesn’t read carefully, or he can’t comprehend what he has read, because he gets it wrong.
Venema has used the Biologos website, and now he uses Evans’s website, as a launching pad for attacks on ID, a movement whose nature he has not grasped. This has been a common practice among Biologos people. The “Leading Figures” page on Biologos for many months had an erroneous characterization of ID as essentially a “God of the gaps” view which required divine interventions. This mischaracterization was brought to the attention of Darrel Falk, head of Biologos, over a year ago, and for many months afterward it remained unchanged. Fortunately, the description of ID on that page has recently been modified, for which I give Biologos credit, but the tendency for individual Biologos columnists to employ that description remains. To give just one example, in the March 26, 2011 Biologos column where Giberson interviews Collins, Collins says this: “Again, the fundamental premise of intelligent design is that there were supernatural interventions to explain irreducible complexity. And how, from a scientific perspective, are you going to catch those in the act when they are, by definition, supernatural?” But of course, as already stated, ID does not require supernatural interventions, and it makes no attempt to catch supernatural interventions in the act. Collins does not grasp that one does not need to catch the sculptors of Mt. Rushmore in the act in order to prove that Mt. Rushmore is the product of design rather than chance. He might grasp it if he would take the time to read ID works instead of getting his picture of ID from hearsay.
If this is going to continue to be the way of Biologos, with figures like Venema and Collins misrepresenting ID in the face of easily available information about what ID actually asserts, one can only hope that Biologos’s funding sources will soon pull the plug on it, and put this ragtag band of carping ID critics out of its misery, and out of business. The moneybags who fund Biologos would be wiser to start a whole new theology/science project, one run by people who are much more cognizant of the very latest developments in biological science and the very latest developments in post-graduate-level theology. And, above all, one run by people who honor the basic academic principle that one should make sure one understands a theoretical position before one criticizes it.
See also: Cudworth, Dennis Venema’s Christian Darwinism is an alarming symptom – but only a symptom – of a much bigger problem
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23 Responses to Dennis Venema Gets ID Wrong (Again)
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“The ‘Leading Figures’ page on Biologos has an erroneous characterization of ID.”
It would be helpful to have a link to more specific information about this: the text of the offending statement(s), commentary on the errors in the statement(s), information on attempts to get it corrected, responses to those attempts, etc.
I’m sure if you search “BioLogos” on the right side of this page you’ll find plenty of posts in this regards.
RalphDavidWestfall:
Thanks for your question. It drove me back to the Leading Figures page on Biologos, which can be found at:
http://biologos.org/resources/leading-figures
For many months I checked the Leading Figures page and found that it was still unchanged long after we had personally challenged Darrel Falk here on UD to change it. But now, I see, they have finally modified it, so I will have to revise one of my paragraphs above. I’ll attend to that later this evening.
I think the changes on the Leading Figures are worthy of an independent discussion, so I will probably post a new column on it tomorrow. But just to highlight one of the main problems with the previous Leading Figures page: previously the page had indicated that ID required direct divine intervention to fill in gaps in natural causation. This was wrong; ID allows for intervention but does not require it. Now that claim has been withdrawn. That marks an improvement. There are still some misleading phrases in the summary of Intelligent Design, but at least the most blatant error has been excised. Whoever finally relented at Biologos and changed the text there deserves credit for ceasing to impute to ID a position which it never held.
The main ID view is that some features of life are too complex to be the result of evolution…
No. NO. AND NO!!
ID theory has nothing to do with per se (that is, intrinsic) complexity. Boulder-strewn mountainsides are complex but have no functionally integrated significance. ID theory has to do with a specific kind of complexity: functionally integrated, information-processing technology, which is everywhere evident in biological systems and which becomes much more apparent the more we learn.
Arguing with Darwinists about all of this is like arguing with inanimate objects. They don’t think. They don’t evaluate. They universally have no expertise in real-world engineering or any concept of the design and intelligence that would be required to produce what they claim random errors created.
In my opinion, Darwinists, including “Christian” Darwinists (whatever the hell that means), are suffering from self-inflicted ignorance of the most destructive kind, because it poisons both the scientific enterprise and the human soul.
I don’t see anything that I would call “information processing technology” in biology, except of course for technology produced by homo sapiens.
Yes, biological systems use information. But they way that they use it better fits what we would call a craft rather than a technology.
Neil states:
Yet, despite Neil’s referenceless assertion, the evidence states:
None of that has to do with why I think it a craft, rather than a technology.
For those truly interested in where the novelty comes from, I highly recommend the new Koonin book. Particularly if it’s still free. Although the author has his own point of view, the book is a well written compendium of historical and contemporary evolutionary ideas.
It was a great idea for UD to recommend it.
I think Koonin’s answer to the novelty question would be that the really difficult stuff (the improbable stuff) would be very ancient, and the product of ancient bacteria.
Neil you state,
And then the burden is on you, since you are making the challenge, to prove as such rather than just assert that it is so.
Neil Rickert:
As you said you are not a biologist. However biologists see information processing technology inside of cells- for example the ribosome is a genetic compiler.
Neil, bornagain77, Joseph, and others:
I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the technical discussion in threads 4 and 5 above; it’s interesting in its own right. But on almost every UD posting we tend to quickly wander into technical details of this sort, even when the posting is focused on something else. Here, I’m trying to get people to reflect on the current comments of Dennis Venema (for which a link is given in the article above), and more generally on how and why Biologos authors misrepresent ID. I’m hoping people will focus on these subjects.
Biologos is using the wealth of a deceased man to misrepresent ID for its own ends. I don’t know how many hits Biologos gets daily, but presumably it runs in the hundreds or thousands (much more than the paltry few comments posted on Biologos would indicate). So the lies and distortions about ID are spreading through the population of internet science-and-religion followers. I’d like us to think about (a) how Biologos distorts ID and (b) how we can address such distortions.
Hi Thomas,
My apologies.
Many people distort ID- just about 100% of all anti-IDists distort ID. They do so because the are a pathetic lot who cannot support their position and therefor are forced to misrepresent all opposition.
How to address that- well beyond litagation, fist-fights, war, etc., I am afraid we just have to live with it and do the best we can to A) expose the lies and B) Correct them
Thomas,
Perhaps more posts about the fact that ID is NOT anti-evolution, rather it is anti- the blind watchmaker having sole dominion over evolutionary processes.
And more posts about what ID DOES claim.
Information/ eductation trumps ignorance…
Hmm, you’d have to get rid of the name “Uncommon Descent” and all of the common ancestry bashing, “common design works just as well as common ancestry” non-arguments, Denyse O’Leary and her campaign against Christianity Today for the Neanderthal Adam cover story, and a lot more stuff, if you want to even begin to correct the “misimpression” that ID is anti-evolution. Right now, objectively, ID mostly *is* antievolution.
How about stating right in the FAQ that ID is not anti-common descent?
How about putting that FAQ on the sidebar?
How about hosting the writings of a major ID proponent, arguably one of the most central ones – Mike Behe – who has repeatedly stated not only the compatibility of CD with ID, but his personal belief in it?
How about repeated statements that ID is compatible with CD, even from those people who reject CD?
How about noting that one can accept ‘evolution’ but not accept ‘common descent’ – that these things are not necessarily related, even if that’s the most far away popular position?
How about noting that one can accept ‘evolution’ even while rejecting ‘macroevolution’?
What would really help, Nick, is you and your colleagues endeavoring to – even in the midst of your ID criticisms – paint the idea with something approaching fairness and accuracy. Ah, but that would complicate things…
That would be an interesting trick. Why would anyone in the ID movement want to deny a point that is accepted by ID’s most qualified proponent?
Common descent is kind of the bedrock for evolution. The common ground that unites everyone working in biology. Including Behe.
Hi NickMatzke_UD!
How are you defining “evolution”?
A change in allele frequency over time is evolution without requiring universal common ancestry.
Descent with modification is evolution without requiring universal common descent.
Baraminology is descent with modofication, which is evolution without requiring universal common descent.
Natural selection is evolution without requiring universal common descent.
OTOH common design is a directly observable phenomenon- we see it every place there are design/ building/ communication standards. Not only that we see it every time a designer wants to improve an existing design.
So Nick, how are YOU defining “evolution” that makes ID anti-evolution?
Or is that kept in a top-super-secret location too?
And front-loaded evolution, prescribed evolution, non-random evolution and evolution by design are all evolution just with the blind watchmaker relegated to breaking things, as observed.
So again I ask-
How are YOU defining “evolution” that makes ID anti-evolution?
But wait, complicated things require the supernatural… 🙂
OK Nick let me help you:
Defining “evolution”:
Those are all accepted definitions of biological “evolution”.
Next I will show what Intelligent Design says about biological evolution and people can see for themselves that Intelligent Design is not anti-evolution:
Dr Behe has repeatedly confirmed he is OK with common ancestry. And he has repeatedly made it clear that ID is an argument against materialistic evolution (see below), ie necessity and chance.
Then we have:
What is Intelligent Design and What is it Challenging?– a short video featuring Stephen C. Meyer on Intelligent Design. He also makes it clear that ID is not anti-evolution.
Next Dembski and Wells weigh in:
and
And from one more pro-ID book:
That is just a sample of what the Intelligent Design leadership say about biological evolution- they are OK with it.
That said Intelligent Design is anti-evolution if and only if “evolution is defined as:
So just come out and say it- the blind watchmaker is the only definition of evolution you will accept and equivocation is the name of your game.
Joseph: “So just come out and say it- the blind watchmaker is the only definition of evolution you will accept and equivocation is the name of your game.”
This hits it right on the head. The blind watchmaker thesis is exactly what Nick and Co. are talking about, and always have been. The NCSE is dedicated to the fully materialistic account, as is Nick, and so many others.
Further, in the case of so many, there is a virulent opposition to anything that they feel may even be supportive of theism. Thus, even though ID is not theistic, and even though ID is compatible with many aspects of evolution, they go on with their obfuscations and “explanations,” no matter how absurd, because: (i) they “can’t allow a divine foot in the door” and (ii) they mistakenly think ID necessarily leads to a divine foot.
The blind watchmaker thesis is *assumed,* if not explicitly stated, almost any time the word “evolution” is used in common parlance.
“Further, in the case of so many, there is a virulent opposition to anything that they feel may even be supportive of theism. Thus, even though ID is not theistic, and even though ID is compatible with many aspects of evolution, they go on with their obfuscations and “explanations,” no matter how absurd, because: (i) they “can’t allow a divine foot in the door” and (ii) they mistakenly think ID necessarily leads to a divine foot.”
So what are the options? I see:
1) God
2) Aliens
3) Natural Selection
Have I missed any?
In the case of aliens, where did the aliens come from? You have the same three options that we have for outselves, so we can rule them out as the old philosophical problem of an infinite regress.
That leaves God and natural selection. Since natural selection does not require a designer, the way I see it, ID is tied to the concept of a supernatural creator. Any natural creator would be subject to the same question.
Granted, that doesn’t rule out ID in the local context of this planet. However, I’ve yet to see an example of irreducible complexity that hasn’t been thoroughly explained in terms of evolution by small increments. I notice you’re still using a picture of the flagellum as your site banner!
Why did NickMatzke_UD run away from this thread?