LETTERS 



not flic knowledge itself. 

 JC: It seems you've forgot- 

 ten that what you are es- 

 pousing is not knowledge 

 but theory, or the pursuit 

 of knowledge. 

 >> NDT: That's as {^ood a 

 definition of science as any. 

 JC: Maybe those who be- 

 lieve in the possibility of an 

 intelligent designer are not 

 "enihmciim ignorance," as 

 you say, but rather have 

 opened their niinds to the 

 idea that there might be 

 something (or someone) 

 supernatural revealing itself 

 through nature. 

 >> NDT: Tliose who nse na- 

 ture as a record of an intelligent 

 designer are being highly selec- 

 tive about what evidence they 

 cite in its cause. And while I 

 made that point seitiicoiiiically, 

 it remains philosophically seri- 

 ous: if there is a higher designer, 

 why do the workings oftiature 

 suggest abject stupidity as often 

 as intelligence? 

 JC: Is it ignorance to say 

 that nature reveals an intel- 

 ligent designer and to ask 

 for what purpose we could 

 have been designed? 

 >> NDT: You can only think 

 that statement is true if you se- 

 lectively ignore deep and unlim- 

 ited evidence to its contrary. In 

 which case, yes, it is ignorance 

 to make such an assertion. 

 JC: Maybe you are mistak- 

 ing Ignorance for humili- 

 ty — something hard to find 

 in the scientific community. 

 >> NDT: Again, I do not 

 like arguing word definitions, 

 but if humility, as you use it, 

 means being so deeply moved 

 by what you do not under- 

 stand that you credit a higher 

 intelligence, thereby abandon- 

 ing any further iiwestigation 

 into its causes, then yes, there 

 is not a single humble scientist 



out there. Or rather, if a scien- 

 tist credits a higher power, then 

 one of two things is true: Ei- 

 ther the scientist feels that way 

 about a subject outside his or 

 her research expertise. Or, if 

 the subject does fall within his 

 or her expertise, the scientist 

 will never make discoveries 

 about it. 



JC: You say that intelli- 

 gent design belongs in the 

 realm of religion, philoso- 

 phy, or psychology, but "not 

 in the science classroom." 

 >> NDT: Yes, because intelli- 

 gent design and its philosophical 

 predecessors played a significant 

 role in the history of human 

 thought — as a reliable obstacle 



plain currently unknown 

 features of the natural 

 world. Christian thinkers 

 have also noted the prob- 

 lems of that strategy from a 

 theological perspective. 



Sitting in a Nazi prison 

 cell in 1 944, the German 

 theologian Dietrich Bon- 

 hoetTer wrote: 



How wrong it is to use God as 

 a stop-gap for the incomplete- 

 ness of our knowledge. If in 

 fact the frontiers of knowledge 

 are being pushed further and 

 further back (and that is bound 

 to be the case), then God is 

 being pushed back with them, 

 and is therefore continually in 

 retreat. We are to find God in 



hendels Sene+ics Reseok^-ch 



to the advance of science. 

 JC: Could It be that scien- 

 tists are afraid of being 

 accountable to an intelli- 

 gent designer, if indeed 

 one exists? 



>> NDT: Given that about 

 30 percent of scientists arc 

 religious, I should think 

 they would welcome sucli a 

 possibility. 



God of the Gaps 



Neil deGrasse Tyson 

 points out the scientific 

 pitfalls of invoking the 

 "God of the gaps" to ex- 



what we know, not in what we 

 don't know; God wants us to 

 realize his presence, not in un- 

 solved problems but in those 

 that are solved. 



To invoke the "God of 

 the gaps" is bad science 

 and worse theology. It is 

 one reason many American 

 Christians share scientists' 

 concerns about the at- 

 tempts by some fundamen- 

 talists to promote intelli- 

 gent design in our schools 

 and in our country. 

 The Revereiul jack V 



Zandwni, Rector 



Grace-St. Paul's Episcopal 



Cluirch 

 Mercerville, New Jersey 



Fact and Theory 



Richard Dawkins ended his 

 excellent article "The Illu- 

 sion of Design" [11/05J, 

 with an unfortunate termi- 

 nological twist: "Evolu- 

 tion ... is not a theory, and 

 for pity's sake, let's stop con- 

 fusing the philosophically 

 naive by calling it so. Evolu- 

 tion is a fact." But collapsing 

 an elegant and far-reaching 

 theory such as evolution in- 

 to a raw datum of nature 

 surrenders the word "theo- 

 ry" to its vulgar usage, and 

 It panders to the "philo- 

 sophically naive" instead of 

 educating them. Instead, 

 let's argue this: Intelligent 

 design is not a theory, but 

 an untestable dogma. 

 Daniel Jacobs 

 San Francisco, California 



Whale Story 



Donald R. Prothero's arti- 

 cle "The Fossils Say Yes" 

 [11/05] mentions transi- 

 tional fossils of whales and 

 other creatures as evidence 

 for evolution. Yet the evi- 

 dence he mentions can all 

 fit within creationist mod- 

 els. As a creationist, I ac- 

 cept that whales were land 

 creatures that went into the 

 sea after the flood. In fact, 

 many of us accept limited 

 speciation on a fast scale. 

 Robert Byers 



Toronto, Ontario, Canada 



Donald R. Prothero 

 replies: It is clear that 

 Robert Byers has not actu- 

 ally looked closely at the 

 evidence and fossils sup- 

 porting evolution. Transi- 

 tional whale fossils occur in 



14 NATURAL HISTORY February 2006 



