In the first Republican presidential debate (May 3, 2007) Chris Matthews asked, “I'm curious, is there anybody on the stage that does not agree, believe in evolution?” (MSNBC transcript). Three candidates – Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo – raised their hands. Now Sam Brownback is trying to clarify his position with an op-ed in today's New York Times (source).
Brownback begins to elaborate his position in the third paragraph, and it sounds promising:
The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions....
Two paragraphs later, though, we see that he doesn't get it:
If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.
Many creationists accept microevolution. Brownback doesn't say it in these words, but what he's rejecting is macroevolution – Darwin's key insight that all living things are descended from a single common ancestor. Brownback is, in other words, a creationist. Rather than letting “the facts speak for themselves,” he writes:
While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science. (emphasis added)
Science depends on observation and experiment to reach conclusions about the natural world. Scientific hypotheses are always provisional and always subject to revision. There is no scientific hypothesis for which “we know with certainty at least part of the outcome.” Brownback is asserting his religious belief, not letting the facts speak for themselves. He will bend the facts to fit his religiously-based understanding of what the facts should be.
Brownback is entitled to his beliefs, but he is not entitled to bend the facts to fit those beliefs. To do so does a disservice to science and to religious faith. “The truths of science and faith are complementary.”
Other reactions:
P.Z. Myers, Pharyngula
Steve Reuland, Panda's Thumb
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