Scott
Puritan Board Graduate
Roman Catholic priest has this article on Intelligent Design. If you want to send him an email about it, his email address is [email protected].
Here is a response from a Gonzaga law professor:
Here is a response from a Gonzaga law professor:
Dear Fr. Morris,
You asked the question, "Did I help?" and this is an attempt at answering it.
First, it was very helpful to point out the importance of philosophical questions as the starting point for knowledge, whether in the public school or elsewhere. Sometimes people (even very educated people) talk as though you could put philosophy to the side and just "know" things; or that you could first find out what the world is "really" like and then construct a philosophy around it. You and I know that philosophy asks questions like, "How do we know things?" and "What different kinds of knowledge are there?" and without having some clarity about the answers to those questions we create confusion, not clarity.
Second, I also agree with your point that what we have now is a philosophical orientation (neo-Darwinian materialism or "scientism") that pervades the science classroom, without an acknowledgement that there are other perspectives on science. In theory--and I stress, in theory--one could confine science as it is taught in the classroom to "what we can observe and measure," and leave the "why?" questions to philosophy.
But there are several reasons why this is not a plausible solution, even in theory.
First, I'll ask my own "why" question -- why should science be limited to "what we can observe and measure"? Let me give an example. In my neck of the woods there is a geological phenomenon known as the "Channeled Scablands"--large stretches of what appear to be a scoured landscape. In the early part of the 20th century a geologist speculated that this resulted from a huge, catastrophic flood. Since it happened far back in the past (he speculated at the time of the last ice age), we can neither observe nor measure the flood itself. However, we can make observations that either lend plausibility to or refute his hypothesis. Initially he was ridiculed by the geological establishment, but eventually his theory was accepted as reflecting what is now known as the Lake Missoula flood, in which an ice dam first formed a huge lake near what is now Missoula, Montana, and when the Ice Age receded, the entire contents of the lake went (literally) roaring across Washington into the Pacific Ocean.
My point is that science often benefits from asking "why?" questions about phenomena we can observe and measure, but won't fully understand unless we speculate about things that (in themselves) can't be observed or measured. The same is true of the Big Bang in physics.
A second reason for resisting your "solution" to the problem is that it just can't happen legally. The textbooks are now full of the neo-Darwinian explanation for a host of biological phenomena. Pictures display the similarity between the bat's wing, the dolphin's flipper, the dog's paw, and the monkey's hand. What explains this similarity? Darwinism answer with "common ancestry and natural selection." Now those answers may be wrong, and they may delve into philosophy, but they are there. Passing a law that tried to eliminate that answer would certainly be struck down as an unconstitutional limitation on the right to discuss evolution -- that's what the Scopes trial was all about. Even assuming your solution was a good one, it is DOA as far as the law.
A third reason for skepticism regarding your proposal is that it isn't fair to the scientists who have proposed intelligent design as a scientific theory. They aren't proposing a "philosophical alternative being marketed for creationist religious reasons as a scientific theory." Michael Behe wanted to put ID on the table for discussion because, when (as a scientist) he tried to find a good scientific explanation for the origin of complex mechanisms like the bacterial flagellum, he found the neo-Darwinian theory to be little more than a "Just-so" story. He had no religious axe to grind. He never asked the Dover School Board to require that his theory be taught, but he also wanted to avoid what Judge Jones did, which is to use his power as a federal judge to pretend that he could decide a scientific question.
I'm going to leave the scientific question for a moment and address the religious question, which is your domain. Again, I want to start with points of agreement. Science and philosophy do ask different questions, but the "two worlds" model that was pressed on Judge Jones by John Haught, who teaches theology at Georgetown, was to a large extent rejected by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical *Fides et Ratio*. We should be wary of efforts to confine science to an objective study of the facts and religion to the world of feeling and belief. Our faith seeks an integration of knowing and believing, and should resist the compartmentalization that even Catholics often accept blindly. It is no small matter that the public schools treat science as dealing with "reality" and faith as though it were something that was a purely private matter. The controversy over ID is just the tip of a very big iceberg, but I would urge you to speak out more forcefully against the dichotomy that is typically accepted without question. You regret the fact that there is no philosophy department down the hall, but in the end you suggest that maybe it's better that way. I do not agree.
So, in answer to your question, yes, you did help, and I salute you for participating as a priest in important issues of public policy. Priests need to be more actively involved in the controversies of the day, educating themselves and educating the rest of us.
But I hope I've helped you, as well.
David K. DeWolf, Professor of Law
Gonzaga Law School, P.O. Box 3528
N. 721 Cincinnati
Spokane, WA 99220-3528
Tel. 509-323-3767; fax 509-323-5701
E-mail: [email protected]
http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/~dewolf
