mormonsandscience

A couple of weeks ago a very good post on abduction appeared on Mormon Organon (view it here). In that post, Mr. Peck correctly argues that abduction, or inference to the best explanation as it is sometimes called, refers to a sort of logical competition between theories. A theory that explains a body of evidence better than its rival theory is more reasonable to accept. If we apply this concept to theories on the origins and complexities of species, evolution is the clear winner, although probably more by default than anything else. But this explains why evolution is so widely accepted. It is simply the best scientific theory available for explaining the origins and complexities of life.

Mr. Peck also effectively pointed out that most theories are created through accumulating observation and empirical facts. The process of collecting empirical facts and creating a suitable theory that explains those facts is sometimes referred to as an inductive generalization. Put differently, an inductive generalization involves moving from many observations to a single, explanatory theory. Many great theories like evolution have been created via inductive generalizations. Creating scientific theories through inductive generalizations is not a theoretical faux pas or scientific weakness; it is just one aspect of how science progresses.  

So far we have only considered the logic of theory discovery. As stated above, scientific abduction plays a role in determining which theories gain prominence. It also plays a role in determining which theory will be singled out for confirmatory investigation, however, the process of confirming a theory through testing is different from abduction.

The most common approach to confirming scientific theories is the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) model of science. In short, the H-D model of science involves deducing observational hypotheses from a theory and testing those hypotheses in a controlled setting. If the results are consistent with the theory’s expectations, then the theory is tentatively confirmed. If the results are not consistent with the theory’s expectations, then the theory is tentatively disconfirmed.

Not all H-D tests of hypotheses are created equal. Influential philosopher of science Karl Popper pointed out that an ideal test of a hypothesis is one that is falsifiable and addresses, as much as possible, the core tenets of the theory. Popper called it making a risky prediction.

Theories that repeatedly survive falsifiable tests and risky predictions gain “certainty” status; we become so certain of their truthfulness that we start calling them laws instead of theories. Theories that have repeatedly survived falsifiable, risky predictions include Relativity, gravity, and the Germ Theory of Disease, to name a few.

Now, because of lengthy time requirements needed for testing falsifiable macroevolutionary hypotheses that make risky predictions a’la the H-D model of science, macroevolution has not risen to the same level of certainty we typically associate with Relativity and gravity. Relativity and gravity have repeatedly undergone crucial testing. In most cases, the results of these tests have been confirmatory (i.e., 1919 Sir Arthur Eddington solar eclipse expedition, atomic clocks in airplanes, and every time you drop your pen it falls, as predicted.)

I don’t have a problem with people saying that they personally accept the certainty of the theory of common descent. Evolution’s pre-eminence in the game of scientific abduction makes this statement legitimate. I do have a problem with people claiming that macroevolution and common descent have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. IMO, the scarcity of confirmed falsifiable and crucial tests of macroevolutionary processes does not warrant such claims.

Sources: (Philosophy of Science: A to Z by Stathis Psillos; Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues by Curd & Cover; Philosophy of Science: A Short Introduction by Samir Okasha.)

 Theistic evolution is the belief that God uses evolution to create life. 

I accept this proposition, to a certain extent.  I believe that one of the joys of being a creator of worlds without number is seeing how life evolves on worlds without divine intervention.  The Creator placed life on His worlds and subjected it to the vicissitudes of chance and time (Ecclesiastes 9:11).  So, in a manner of speaking, the effects of time and chance are part of the grand master plan.

Thus we see that there is harmony between randomness and divine purpose.  Contrary to Einstein’s assertion that the Creator does not leave anything to chance (i.e., all events, including falling dice, are law governed), God allows randomness and apparently “uses” it to accomplish His creative objectives (more on these objectives in the next paragraph).  Divine purpose and randomness are compatible.  They can co-exist peacefully!

It is important for us to recognize the compatibility between divine creation and randomness because, as science has shown, random events occur at the genomic level.  Random mutation is a fundamental tenet of neo-Darwinism. According to the reputable Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science, “The theory of neo-Darwinism asserts that much of the evolutionary change observed at the molecular level occurs via random genetic drift.” 

Because God and randomness are compatible under certain circumstances, there are no theoretical problems with asserting that He relies on evolutionary, random, genetic drift to achieve His objectives (by ‘objectives’, I am referring to the creation of new and interesting variations without direct divine intervention).  So if God sometimes relies on evolutionary randomness, what is wrong with believing in theistic evolution?

The problem lies with the creation of man (and woman).  You see, most theistic evolutionists believe that Adam and Eve’s bodies evolved from lower life forms, just like every other mammal.  This claim is entirely inconsistent with gospel doctrine.  

The gospel teaches that the creation of mankind was purposeful and directed – it could be no less because mankind had to be created in the image of God (Moses 6:8-9).  The creation of mankind was not left up to the vicissitudes of chance over time.  The Creator was not looking for new and interesting variations when He created mankind.  It had to be done a certain way, in a manner that did not involve randomness inherent in evolution. The creation of mankind was not a processes to be left to evolutionary creativity.  Prominent Latter-day Saint scholars support this view.

Joseph Fielding McConkie wrote:

Some have argued for a form of theistic evolution—that is, a God-inspired evolution—in which lower forms of life progressed over great periods of time to the point that God could take the spirit of the man Adam and place it in an animal and declare it to be the first man. The argument is at odds both with scripture and with an official declaration of the First Presidency on the origin of man.

Robert J. Mathews similarly wrote:

The theistic evolutionist often speaks of a guided evolution, in which God intervenes in the process. There are those in and out of the Church who, because they believe in a divine being, sincerely attempt to hold to both the theory of evolution and their faith in God as creator. It is my opinion that in the eternal plan of God these two positions are incompatible.

I have heard rationalizations from Latter-day Saints desperately wanting to reconcile gospel doctrine and their belief in common descent.  I cannot fault them for trying, however, their efforts have largely proved ineffectual.  Their explanations lack theoretical and theological rigor.  For instance, a common explanation is that God-directed evolution only appears random to us lowly mortals.  This explanation falls short because the real issue is not one of appearances; it is one of what is ontologically real about the creation of mankind.  In other words, at its foundation, was the creation of mankind driven by chance processes as evolution asserts, or was it guided by deity?  If God created mankind with guided “evolutionary” processes, then it really wasn’t evolution, was it, regardless of appearances?

Parallel evolution is another perfunctory attempt at reconciling the theory of evolutionary descent with gospel doctrine on the creation of man.  In a manner of speaking, parallel evolution refers to the independent evolution of similar traits in life forms that shared similar ancestral conditions.  Put differently, two organisms with similar traits may evolve in a similar manner in different settings.  I suppose that this is supposed to show that there is an underlying law or metaphysical principle guiding the evolution of similar traits in separate environmental contexts, and that this principle has something to do with God’s influence.  

Atheistic evolutionists will readily concede that parallel evolution reflects the underlying laws of nature governing evolutionary processes, but they will also add that those laws are purposeless and are not devised by higher intelligence.  Theistic evolutionists, on the other hand, will say that parallel evolution evidences a purposeful creator, that he set the laws of evolution in motion and dictated how those laws were to work from the beginning.

How do the atheists feel about divine guided evolution?  They do not like it, and rightfully so.  For atheists, parallel evolution just shows that there are underlying laws of nature resulting in uniform progression. Atheists believe in law governed evolution, however, they reject that those laws were created for a divine purpose.  The laws are just laws, nothing more and nothing less.  Atheists reject divine, purpose-driven evolution because, as they correctly point out, at its core evolution is purposeless.  

Notwithstanding their anti-religious stance, Richard Dawkins and Will Provine are two evolution atheists who tend to think more clearly about this issue than most theistic evolutionists.  Here is what they had to say about believing that God provided the laws of evolution for the purpose of creating mankind.    

Dawkins:
If I were God, I wouldn’t do it by evolution!  I would do it directly. By invoking the idea of evolution by natural selection as God’s way of doing it, you are in effect invoking the one way which makes it look as though God isn’t there.  So if God chose that way of doing it, then he deliberately chose a way which totally covered his tracks.

Provine:
I think creation scientists are very intellectually honest in their beliefs. If evolution is true, then none of the things that deeply religious people want to be true are in fact true. No God. No life after death. No free will. No ultimate meaning in life and no ultimate foundation for ethics. All these things are taken away.

So what are we to conclude about Latter-day Saints who embrace theistic evolution, notwithstanding its inconsistencies with true gospel doctrine and evolution orthodoxy?  Perhaps LDS scholar Robert J. Mathews put it best when he wrote:  

It may be that the believer who accepts [theistic evolution] has simply never thought it out to its logical, moral conclusions.  

Well, I finally got around to finishing my January 2009 issue of Scientific American, you know, the special issue on the "most powerful idea in science" (shhh! Don't tell Einstein).  I think most of the evolution articles were well written.  I particularly enjoyed “Evolution in the Everyday World” which talks about how evolution is being applied in technology, criminology, medicine, and computer science.  Because I graduated with a doctoral degree in psychology, I was especially interested in “The Four Fallacies of Pop Evolution Psychology.”

Generally speaking, evolutionary psychology uses evolutionary principles to understand human development and behavior.  It is “the new kid on the block” in the discipline of psychology.  It has only been around (in classrooms and texts) for about 10 years.  I thought that the queen bee, evolution biology, would welcome this new offspring into the hive and put it “under her wing” until evolutionary psychology could successfully branch out on its own.  On the contrary, she views the new discipline as an unwanted species resulting from an unfortunate mutation in the social sciences.  And so now the queen bee is trying to artificially select it for elimination.  That’s right folks; evolutionary psychology has been voted off the hive by evolution biologists. 

Hoooray!  As several hundred of my former students know, I don’t think too highly of evolutionary psychology.  I have always said that it was intellectually bankrupted from the get go, and Scientific American (SCIAM) agrees, to a certain extent.  

I found it interesting that SCIAM calls it “pop evolution psychology,” as if to suggest that there may be a legitimate evolutionary psychology out there somewhere – yeah right!  SCIAM sould have just called it “evolutionary psychology” because the scholars it attacks are those the psychology discipline recognizes as modern architects of the evolutionary psychology movement, notables like Steve Pinker.  SCIAM’s criticisms are legitimate, but as we shall soon see, this is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

According to the article, evolutionary psychologists attempt to understand human behavior by “analyzing the adaptive problems our ancestors faced [long ago].”  However, the article also points out that claims regarding our ancestors’ adaptive problems “are purely speculative because we have little evidence of the conditions under which early human evolution occurred.”  In other words, evolutionary psychologists can’t say for certain what conditions and adaptive challenges existed long ago because they were not there!

The article also points out that for evolutionary psychologists to effectively speculate on how adaptation to environmental challenges influenced our ancestors’ psychological traits, we need “knowledge of our ancestors’ psychological traits – which we don’t have – [so] we can’t know how selection tinkered with them to create the minds we now possess.”  In other words, evolutionary psychologists cannot speak authoritatively on how our minds developed because we are missing too much information, thus they resort to best-guess story telling to fill in the gaps.

The gist of these and other criticisms is that evolutionary psychology is plagued by speculation.  It lacks facts to back up the ideas it’s advocating.  Jack Nicholaus might put it this way: “You evolutionary psychologists are writing checks (hypotheses) that your research (facts) can’t cash!”

Well done evolution biology, but did you notice that some of the criticisms you leveled at evolutionary psychology also apply to you?  That’s right – you better be careful when pointing a finger at someone else, there are three pointing back at you, you schmuck.

In the same edition, SCIAM also presents in stunning artistic detail the human pedigree showing the evolution of mankind.  The article boldly claims that “we KNOW that our closest living ancestor is the chimpanzee and that humans arose in Africa between five million and seven million years ago.”  Somewhat surprisingly, after making this bold claim, the article admits these 4 weaknesses: (a) “the human family tree contains many dead branches;” (b) “the story of our origins is far from complete;” (c) paleontologists have yet to find “fossils of the last common ancestor [linking] chimpanzees are humans,” and (d) we have yet to learn how “homo sapiens [were] able to outcompete the Neandertals and other archaic humans.”

Soooo, what evolution biology is saying is it lacks facts to back up several of its assertions regarding the human pedigree because its wasn't there when those things happened, and it is left with conjecture when filling many of the gaps of the human pedigree.  Wait a minute!  Yet evolution biology claims to KNOW that humanity arose in Africa 5-7 million years ago as a close relative of chimpanzees?!  

Evolutionary biology, when it comes to the origins of mankind, like the evolutionary psychologists, you too are writing checks (hypotheses) that your research (facts) can’t cash!

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was an evolutionist who believed in the inheritance of acquired traits.  Inheritance of acquired traits is the notion that changes in an organism’s characteristics that are caused by life events or exposure to environmental stimuli may be passed onto offspring.  For instance, if a man takes up body building and develops muscle mass, he will pass muscle mass characteristics onto his offspring.  Or if a mother becomes a prolific reader, her children may become good readers.  

Here is what Lamarck said:
"All the acquisitions or losses wrought by nature on individuals, through the influence of the environment in which their race has long been placed, and hence through the influence of the predominant use or permanent disuse of any organ; all these are preserved by reproduction to the new individuals which arise, provided that the acquired modifications are common to both sexes, or at least to the individuals which produce the young."

Lamarck deserves credit for being among the first to provide a comprehensive theory of evolution.  He also deserves credit for stressing the important role that environment plays in giving rise to changes in organisms.  However, because he advanced the idea of inheritable acquired traits, and idea that has been rejected by the scientific community, he has been relegated to the bottom of the evolution contribution totem pole.  At the top of the pole is Darwin’s face, under it is Wallace’s face, and somewhere near the bottom is Lamarck’s face, positioned where people have been able to kick his teeth once and a while for proposing inheritable acquired traits.  Well, that may be changing.

Recent discoveries in genetics have uncovered an exciting field called epigenetics.  Epigenetics is the study of the mechanisms that drive gene expression without altering the basic structure of DNA.  Put simply, certain genes may be turned on and off, thus leading to changes in human phenotype (visible characteristics) without altering the genotype itself.  The effects of epigenetics may be far reaching.  It may lead to a better understanding of aging, life changes, and the causes and potential cures of diseases, to name a few.   

What I find interesting about epigenetics is that the mechanisms driving gene expression can be influenced by environmental stimuli.  What is even more intriguing is that epigenetic changes can be passed onto offspring.  That’s right, the sort of things you expose yourself too (good and bad) can influence your offspring.  I am not just talking about pregnant mothers here.  Environmental influences we were exposed to as young children may have epigenetic consequences for our offspring.

Epigenetics is not a vindication of Lamarck’s principle of inherited acquired traits; they are not the same thing.  But if I had to pick a scholar who came the closest to presaging epigenetic phenomena, it would have to be Lamarck.  Well done, Jean-Baptiste.

Epigenetics is a recent discovery, yet God has always known about it.  He knows everything about how the environment affects our epigenetics.  I am certain that He took epigenetic phenomena into consideration when he gave us the Word of Wisdom.  The Word of Wisdom was given to us as a form of godly admonition or divine advice about what we should take into our bodies.  He did not tell us why He gave us the Word of Wisdom, He just did.  Yet as science’s understanding of the importance of consumptive habits grows (e.g., balanced diet, moderation, avoiding harmful substances, type II diabetes, epigenetics), we are increasingly uncovering the godly wisdom in the Word of Wisdom.

So those of us who want to pass on favorable epigenetic characteristics to our children and grand children should heed the counsel of the Word of Wisdom.  It now appears that the things we were exposed to as children can influence our children’s epigenetics, and the things that we expose our young children to can influence our grandchildren’s epigenetics. 

In aviation it’s called a “course correction”.  When a flight crew realizes that they’ve deviated from the pre-established direction of flight, they correct their course.  

It seems the BYU Biology department needs a course correction.  

The biology department’s mandate is to teach the science of biology, including evolution, within the light of the gospel.  I am sure they are doing an excellent job of teaching the principles of biology and evolution, but when it comes to integrating the principles of biology with the principles of the gospel, they’ve goofed.  They are way off course.  That’s right; if they were NASA, the Mars rover would have crashed landed on Venus.

A faculty member recently said, “We [the biology department] spend time dispelling the myth that evolution and religion are incompatible” (Feb. 9, 2009 BYU newspaper, The Daily Universe).  In other words, they are teaching that the doctrines of evolution and religion are in complete harmony.  I can only assume that this statement includes the restored gospel.   

Can someone please tell me how a godless and directionless theory of the descent of mankind is in harmony with a purpose-driven and divinely-directed theology of creation?  BYU biology professors who do not recognize these inconsistencies between the evolutionary and gospel accounts of the creation of mankind need to do some reading.  Those who avoid the conflict by compartmentalizing dissimilar gospel and evolutionary teachings and then tell their students that the two are compatible are being disingenuous.  In either event, a course correction is needed.

Apparently I am not the only member of the church who has pointed out the glaring inconsistencies between gospel and evolutionary accounts of the origin of mankind.   

Joseph Fielding Smith, John Taylor, Joseph Fielding McConkie, and Boyd K. Packer also recognized the inconsistencies.  Here is what they said:

Joseph Fielding Smith
“This idea that everything commenced from a small beginning, from the scum upon the surface of the sea, and has gradually developed until all forms of life, the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the plants upon the face of the earth, have all sprung from that one source, is a falsehood absolutely.  There is no truth in it, for God has given us his word by which we may know.” 

John Taylor
According to gospel doctrine, “The principles [of creation] do not change, as represented by evolutionists of the Darwinian school, but the primitive organisms of all living beings exist in the same form as when they first received their impress from their Maker. There are, indeed, some very slight exceptions, as for instance, the ass may mix with the mare and produce the mule; but there it ends, the violation of the laws of procreation receives a check, and its operations can go no further.”

Joseph Fielding McConkie
"Is the theory of evolution compatible with the doctrine of the Fall?  No. We can tug, twist, contort, and sell our birthright, but we cannot overcome the irreconcilable differences between the theory of organic evolution and the doctrine of the Fall. Some have argued for a form of theistic evolution—that is, a God-inspired evolution—in which lower forms of life progressed over great periods of time to the point that God could take the spirit of the man Adam and place it in an animal and declare it to be the first man. The argument is at odds both with scripture and with an official declaration of the First Presidency on the origin of man."

Boyd K. Packer
"No lesson is more manifest in nature than that all living things do as the Lord commanded them in the Creation. They reproduce after their own kind.  They follow the pattern of their parentage. Everyone knows that. Every four-year-old knows that! A bird will not become an animal nor a fish. . . . Each is a child of God. He is not a monkey; neither were his ancestors."

It is time for the BYU biology department to change course on their approach to evolution and Mormonism.  First, they need to stop spreading the myth that Mormon theology and evolution are in complete harmony.  Second, they should study the underlying differences, acknowledge that differences exist, tell their students about the inconsistencies, and let their students make up their own minds on the matter. 

The BYU Biology Department’s efforts to lionize Darwin and find meaningful parallels between his life and those of great men have me wondering.  Perhaps the BYU Darwin Bicentennial celebrations attempted to make a Darwinian mole hill into a Darwinian mountain.  Of course Darwin did a great job at uncovering a mechanism driving microevolutionary processes (he did not “invent” evolution), but I am not inclined to put him into the same category as other great men.  I would argue that in the grand scheme of things, his scientific accomplishments and their impact on society pale in comparison to those from scientists like Boyle, Newton, Galileo, Faraday, and James Clerk Maxwell.

Let's take Galileo, for example.  Not only was he a great scientist, his work is directly connected to the Restoration. 

- Joseph Smith and Galileo encountered stiff resistance from apostate religionists when they tried to tell the world of truths they had discovered.  Joseph Smith had truths about the nature of the godhead and religions, and Galileo had truths about the nature of our solar system and our place in the universe.  

- Also, Galileo and Smith encountered the same sort of opposition as they challenged deep-seated apostate views.  The prophet Joseph Smith declared, “I soon found that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among the professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution.”  And Galileo similarly wrote, “I discovered in the heavens many things that had not been seen before our own age. The novelty of these things, as well as some consequences which followed from them . . . stirred up against me no small number of professors.”

- And attempts were made to disprove each man’s discoveries.  In the case of Smith, clergy members attempted to deny and disprove it by claiming that “there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles and that there would never be any more of them.”  And in the case of Galileo, “[Theologians] sought to deny and disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them.”

- Galileo’s efforts to loosen the shackles that constrained free thinking prepared the earth for the Restoration which Joseph Smith brought forth centuries later. 

- Finally, each man lost his freedom as a result of challenging apostate religious dogma.

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, who is the head of the Catholic Church’s Pontifical Council for Culture, recently affirmed the church’s full fledged acceptance of neo-Darwinism as the mechanism by which God created the world and mankind.  He wrote, “In fact, what we mean by evolution is the world as created by God.”  

How did they goof up again? 

They overstepped their religious boundaries by making formal scientific assertions.  (Steven Jay Gould, the late biologist who argued for a vigorous separation of religious and scientific domains, might be turning in his grave right now.)  You see, the Catholic Church made the same sort of mistakes with Galileo in the 1600s.  He said that the earth and all the planets move around the sun; the Catholic Church said he was wrong and they locked him up.  The church claimed the sun and all the planets revolve around the earth.  It turns out Galileo was right and the church was wrong.

There are 2 good reasons why churches should refrain from making such statements. 

First, as Galileo pointed out to the Catholic Church hundreds of years ago, churches are in the business of saving souls, not scientific theories.  Hearing the Catholic Church make scientific truth claims is a bit like going to the butcher shop and being given legal instruction on how to write a binding contract, or going to the bank and being given medical instructions on how to treat a sports injury.  I am pleased that the LDS church has refrained from making formal statements about scientific issues.  It seems to understand better than other religions that its purpose is to bring souls unto Christ.

Second, science is an ever changing enterprise.  It is a bit hard for us to realize that well-accepted theories come and go because so many of us don’t have the benefit of living long enough to see this happen.  Here are a few recent examples.  The once widely accepted scientific theory of Phlogiston is now debunked.  The once widely accepted theory of Luminiferous Ether is now debunked.  Even several of Newton’s “irreplaceable and irrefutable” ideas have now been replaced by Einstein’s Relativity.  The geocentric (earth-centered) theory of the universe which dominated science for over 1400 years was eventually replaced, and, yes, one day evolution may also be replaced by a superior theory of the diversity of life forms.  Hard to believe?!  That is what the advocates of ether and Newton’s mechanics once thought.

What happens when a scientific theory changes or is debunked, as history has shown?  This is an important question for religions to consider.  If a religion thoroughly embraces a scientific theory, what does it say when that theory changes or is debunked?  If it claims inspiration from God, how will its leadership appear to others when it says, “Uh. Umm . . . We made a mistake, guys”?  It will appear foolish.  This is exactly what happened with the Catholic Church in its handling of the Galileo affair.

American philosopher George Santayana wrote “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”  The Catholic Church would be wise to consider this sage advice.