What’s Wrong with the World

Francis Beckwith's recent post Design, Theism, and Romans 1:20 has elicited a multi-faceted debate taking up, as of this writing, over 130 combox entries. In this post I want to focus on what I see as the most important sub-debate in that thread: that between the "theistic evolutionists" and advocates of intelligent-design theory (ID). Exchanges between Prof. Beckwith and Lydia McGrew afforded most of the substance of that sub-debate. Rather than rehearse its details, however, I shall frame the issue in a way I believe most conducive to progress.

ID presents itself as a scientific theory. It proposes that some features of living things can only be explained as products of intelligent design, and its proponents are confident that such a proposition is scientifically testable. For two reasons, though, I am not concerned with the question whether such confidence is justified. For one thing, I am not qualified to judge. But more important, I believe that the overarching philosophical question at stake would be left largely untouched even if ID were empirically well-confirmed.

I say "largely" but not "wholly" because the success of ID, if that were forthcoming, would at least be philosophically relevant. By showing that neo-Darwinism is scientifically inadequate as an explanation for the development of species, it would rightly cast doubt on the thesis of neo-Darwinian materialists that the origin of life itself can eventually be explained in non-teleological terms. And the ranks of those finding support for classical theism in ID would certainly be bolstered. But I do not share the confidence of ID theorists that things will take such a happy course; and even if they did, materialist neo-Darwinians could always emulate the old defenders of geocentrism by having recourse to epicyclical explanations for which they could claim predictive value. They could, that is, postulate that the pertinent features were designed by other material, if admittedly intelligent, beings. I have read that Richard Dawkins has already armed himself with such a comeback on the off chance that it turns out to be needed. Although it's hard to see how that postulate could be tested, it would in principle be testable.

But those aren't even the main reasons I don't believe that ID can offer what most of its proponents seem to want: scientific evidence for classical theism. As I implied in my review of Georgetown theologian John Haught's book Is Nature Enough? Truth and Meaning in the Age of Science (2006), the very idea of seeking scientific evidence for classical theism is a category mistake. The aims, methods, and canons of natural science, though not immune to revision, remain just as they are whether or not classical theism is true. There is no scientific work for an appeal to a "God of the gaps" to do.

A more promising tack, I believe, would be to show that natural science does not, because it cannot, answer a certain question that its results make it reasonable to raise: why are the laws of nature, whatever they are, what they are? Natural science entails discovering causal regularities and subsuming them under higher-order causal regularities. Those are what natural science uses to explain and predict observable events. Within its proper sphere, it does so quite successfully; it might conceivably come up with a confirmable "Theory of Everything," where the quantifier ranges over physical things. And the nested set of causal regularities such a theory would present would just be "the laws of nature." But that doesn't rule out the question why the-totality-of-things-that-change, or what Wittgenstain termed "the sphere of what happens," exists.

Call that totality 'T'. Granted we do not know its full extent, and may never know it short of the Eschaton, T certainly exists. The question why T exists is meaningful because we cannot rule out that T embodies the intention of something it does not comprise, and is in that sense telic. We could rule out that possibility, and thus render the question meaningless, only by premising scientism: the thesis that only what can be known by means of modern science, and thus without recourse to final (and formal) causes, can be known at all. Yet, for reasons that needn't be explained, no scientific argument for scientism can be given. Scientism is a philosophical option for which, I've suggested, the arguments are essentially moral arguments. Given the full range and depth of human experience, those arguments are not particularly persuasive. And once one realizes that the question why T exists admits only a teleological answer if it is answerable at all, then a successful ID could be taken as evidence that the question is quite reasonable to raise. A true and non-trivial answer to that question would also afford an answer to the question why the laws of nature are as they are.

A successful ID would not and could not provide the answer to either question; but it would provide a good reason to admit both—a better reason, I should think, then Dawkins' saving-the-appearances hypothesis would be for excluding them. Here, "theistic evolutionists" would be on terra firma they could share with ID theorists. But only if ID proves itself scientifically cogent.

Lawrence Auster has posted a characteristically cruel, but, in this case, I think, reasonably fair critique of Angelo Codevilla's truly strange "Pro-Mexico" article at The American Spectator.

Well worth a glance.

What's Wrong with the World is pleased to welcome as a new contributor Michael Liccione. Dr. Liccione received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and has taught at a number of Catholic colleges, including Catholic University of America and the University of St. Thomas (Houston).

Michael's blog, Sacramentum Vitae, discusses topics that readers of W4 will be interested in--petitionary prayer, arguments against the existence of God, abortion, and Catholic liberalism. We look forward to seeing such posts and reader discussions of them here at W4.

In the Fall 1992 issue of Touchstone, S.M. Hutchens argued that Christianity and feminism are mutually incompatible. Here's the money quote:

Feminist doctrine cannot accommodate the Church's insistence that all must bend the knee before the Man who is the perfect and complete revelation of God, for it simply does not believe God can be perfectly and completely revealed by a male. In consistently egalitarian theology there must be at the very least a feminine co-principal. But this orthodox Christianity denies, agreeing here with the more thoroughgoing feminists, that those who wish to retain their alliance with the faith by styling themselves Christian egalitarians can only do so by misunderstanding both Christian doctrine and the telos of their own ideology. You cannot have both at once; Christianity and feminism, whether of the egalitarian or gynarchial variety, exclude one another.

I invite comments. But please read the whole thing first. These are deep waters.

...about my earlier post on the failure of state schools in the U.K., here's
a necessary corrective:

"To determine students’ level of basic civic knowledge, we surveyed Arizona high school students with questions drawn from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) item bank, which consists of 100 questions given to candidates for United States citizenship. The longstanding practice has been for candidates to take a test on 10 of these items. A minimum of six correct answers is required to pass. The service recently reported a first-try passing rate of 92.4 percent.

"The Goldwater Institute survey, conducted by a private survey firm, gave each student 10 items from the USCIS item bank...Questions included (1) Who was the first president of the United States? (2) Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? and (3) What ocean is located on the East Coast of the United States?

"...Only 3.5 percent of Arizona high school students attending public schools passed the citizenship test..."

Continue reading "In case anybody's feeling smug..." »

Apparently bureaucrat Elaine Thibodeau, of the Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, thinks it does. Thibodeau sent a letter to the Christian Action Network concerning a fund-raising letter it sent out this year. Thibodeau's letter of accusation contains a list of charges, a fine for $4,000, and a place for CAN's leaders to sign that they admit to all the charges and waive their right to appeal.

Among the allegations are #5, "The correspondence contained an inflammatory anti-Muslim message."

To which my immediate reply is, "So? This is illegal?"

Interestingly, the $4,000 fine is actually being levied for two other alleged violations. The first is sending out a fund-raising letter without being properly registered as a non-profit. But actually CAN has canceled checks showing that it was duly registered in 2008, and the state doesn't make any claim to the contrary. The letter in question was sent before the end of the renewal grace period for 2009 re-registrations, so their 2008 registration should still have been in effect. Moreover, the state's complaints about missing paperwork for their 2009 registration seem plausibly to have been cooked up for harassment purposes when the state decided it disapproved of the group's message.

More worriesome is the $3000 portion of the fine for using the state governor's name without his written consent! The fund-raising letter urges recipients to write to the government concerning a pro-Muslim public school curriculum (with Muslim prayer "play-acting"), urging him to stop the institution of the curriculum. Anyone who gets mailings from non-profit organizations recognizes this sort of lobbying suggestion quite well. If it is illegal in Maine to urge people to write to the governor without the governor's written consent, Maine has serious First Amendment problems.

But back to the "inflammatory" speech thing:

Continue reading "Does Maine have Hate Speech laws?" »

To the puzzlement of many, one of the first changes our new President made to the White House was sending back to Britain a bronze bust of Sir Winston Churchill that had watched over the Oval Office since the September 11th attacks. There was little explanation for this gesture, or hint of its significance.

The significance of Churchill for Americans, and for all mankind, need hardly be hinted at. He was the greatest statesman of the calamitous twentieth century, and among its greatest men of letters.

Fortunately, though America now lacks the bronze of the great man, thanks to ISI, a small publisher out of Wilmington, Delaware, we no longer lack a current edition of one of his neglected literary works. ISI has brought forth a new printing of Churchill’s 1932 collection of essays, Thoughts and Adventures, and we are all the richer for so superb and enjoyable a read.

[Read the rest.]

Just saw this interesting piece published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here's an excerpt:

Lemon's Domestic Violence Law is organized as a conventional law-school casebook — a collection of judicial opinions, statutes, and articles selected, edited, and commented upon by the author. The first selection, written by Cheryl Ward Smith (no institutional affiliation is given), offers students a historical perspective on domestic-violence law. According to Ward:

"The history of women's abuse began over 2,700 years ago in the year 753 BC. It was during the reign of Romulus of Rome that wife abuse was accepted and condoned under the Laws of Chastisement. ... The laws permitted a man to beat his wife with a rod or switch so long as its circumference was no greater than the girth of the base of the man's right thumb. The law became commonly know as 'The Rule of Thumb.' These laws established a tradition which was perpetuated in English Common Law in most of Europe."

Where to begin? How about with the fact that Romulus of Rome never existed. He is a figure in Roman mythology — the son of Mars, nursed by a wolf. Problem 2: The phrase "rule of thumb" did not originate with any law about wife beating, nor has anyone ever been able to locate any such law. It is now widely regarded as a myth, even among feminist professors.

A few pages later, in a selection by Joan Zorza, a domestic-violence expert, students read, "The March of Dimes found that women battered during pregnancy have more than twice the rate of miscarriages and give birth to more babies with more defects than women who may suffer from any immunizable illness or disease." Not true. When I recently read Zorza's assertion to Richard P. Leavitt, director of science information at the March of Dimes, he replied, "That is a total error on the part of the author. There was no such study." The myth started in the early 1990s, he explained, and resurfaces every few years.

Read the whole thing here.

What's Wrong With the World readers in the greater Chicagoland area may be interested in an upcoming conference on Global Bioethics sponsored by the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. It will be held July 16-18, 2009 on the campus of Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois. Among the featured speakers are yours truly, O. Carter Snead (Notre Dame Law School), and David P. Gushee (Mercer University). You can find out more about the conference here.

(Originally posted on First Thoughts, a First Things blog)

New Atheists like Richard Dawkins feign outrage at any suggestion that their creed itself amounts to a kind of religion – even as (for example) they issue their own suggested revisions of the Ten Commandments (see The God Delusion, pp. 263-4). Now, a reader informs me, Dawkins has decided to sponsor his own version of Bible Camp. I kid you not. All Dawkins needs now is a camp song; have fun coming up with your own lyrics.

After dragging out the process for a good, long, time (for no apparent good reason), Cardinal Sean O'Malley is to be commended for withdrawing Caritas Christi at the 11th hour from a joint venture in which an insurance company half-owned by Caritas would have provided abortion and sterilization to the poor in Massachusetts. According to the Boston Globe story, the insurance venture is now wholly owned by the secular Centene Corporation, rather than being 49% owned by the Catholic charity company as it previously was. According to the story, Caritas Christi's hospitals will receive patients covered by the Centene venture, as they receive patients covered by other insurance companies. Patients seeking abortions will be told that they must contact their insurance company--in this case the Centene-owned Celticare. Caritas claims that this represents no change from their previous policy regarding patients seeking abortions, which I would say is plausible enough.

Apparently, this means that Caritas isn't getting a contract with the state and is, rather, just continuing business as before. The contract with the state is now merely with Centene-owned Celticare, and Caritas can go back to doing things as it always did. That, at least, is how this is being reported, and I hope that it is true.

Some have implied that the financially distressed Caritas will go out of business altogether if it does not get this contract with the state. Naturally, I hope that this does not happen, though a Christian organization should certainly not provide abortions as the price of continuing to stay in business. If Caritas stays afloat without the state contract, this will only make the original intention to seek the contract with all its illegitimate requirements all the more blame-worthy and unmitigated.

Over at First Thoughts (a First Things blog), I posted an entry about the online discussion between Stephen Barr (on First Thoughts) and John West (on Evolution News). To find my posting, go here.

Via Laban Tall, blog-chronicler extraordinaire of British decline, comes this gem: The Best Educated Generation in History:

"Alas, our well-educated young people are finding that their lives are being ruined by a despotic tyranny.

"'Students who failed to understand the words "despotic tyranny" have been complaining about their history A-level exam.

"'It is claimed the question "How far do you agree that Hitler's role 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?" was too confusing for some students to understand.

"'A protest group called Despotic Tyranny Ruined My Life has been set up on Facebook.

"'So far 1,151 people have joined the group, leaving comments such as "My life is DESTROYED because of this exam. Seriously" and "This exam made me sad.'

"What's at once impressive, pathetic and sad are the self-righteous complaints of the students. Look and despair. These are next year's university intake..."

Continue reading "Sound Familiar?" »

A commercial from Macedonia. (HT: Inside Catholic)

Over at NRO, Jonah Goldberg offers some nice insights on the way the media have covered Michael Jackson's passing. Here is an excerpt:

[H]is relatively early death wasn’t “tragic.” He was one of the richest people in the world. He spent his money on perpetual childhood and he was perpetually with children not his own.

Meanwhile, in the last ten days, we’ve seen or heard of remarkable people who’ve given their lives for freedom in Iran. We’ve heard of innocents killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the last decade, America has lost thousands of heroes in noble causes and thousands of innocent bystanders who were denied the simple joys of life through no fault of their own. Those deaths are tragic, and we're hard pressed to think of more than a handful of names to put with the long line of the dead.

If anything, Michael Jackson’s life, not his death, was tragic....

I feel sympathy for Jackson’s family and friends who understandably mourn him. But I can't bring myself to mourn him any more than I mourn the random dead I read about in the paper everyday. Indeed, I confess to mourning him less.

Every channel says this is a sad day for America. I agree. But not for the same reasons.

(Originally posted on First Thoughts at First Things)