Re-reading Root-Bernstein and

McEachron in Cobb County, Georgia

The Controversies Continue Between Anthropology
and "Intelligent Design "
Benjamin Z. Freed
The following selection is a recent update of the im-
portant issues raised in the first article by Root-
Bernstein and McEachron. As a holistic science that
looks at many different aspects of the human condition
over time, anthropology incorporates different ap-
proaches to data collection and interpretation. Some
areas of anthropology, such as biological and physical
anthropology, primatology, and archaeology, generally
addere to the tenets of hypothetico-deductive science.
In'other words, anthropologists in these fields propose
theories that can be tested using empirical data.
Insights into how living organisms function and
how they change over time have been generated by a
set of concepts and theories collectively known as
evolutionary theory. Modern biology, from the under-
standing of cells to populations of animals, relies heav-
ily on evolutionary theory for explanations about why
living things are the way they are. As discussed in the
following article, evolutionary theory provides an
explanatory backdrop for understanding biological
phenomena, much as any explanation of physical
movement or a chemical reaction should be compati-
ble with the laws of physics and chemistry.
Although it is almost universally accepted by the
scientific community, some people (particularly fun-
damentalist groups) have seen evolutionary theory as
incompatible with Christian beliefs. The past two decades
have seen a resurgence of popular debate over evolution-
ary theory, especially as it is taught in high schools in the
United States. There has been a push in some religiously
conservative communities to have evolutionary theory
removed from schools, or to have its teaching presented
as mere theory rather than scientific fact. One alternative
explanation of complex biological mechanisms has been
proposed called "intelligent design."
In this selection, the author reexamines many of
the principles in the first article. He looks at the religious
underpinnings of creationist beliefs and then examines
the supposedly "scientific" intelligent design theory.
Using basic criteria for the evaluation of scientific the-
ory, he concludes that intelligent design fails to qualify
as hypothetico-deductive science. He then goes on to
discuss how anthropology both suggests a need to un-
derstand the religious motivation for attacks on evolu-
tionary theory and, at the same time, provides a strong
impetus for anthropologists who work on evolution
to defend the teaching of evolution on the basis of its
scientific merit.
I n 1984, I took a graduate course on the history of
biology. In preparation for that seminar I read the arti-
cle that was the previous selection in this volume
"Teaching Theories: The Evolution-Creation Contro-
versy," Root-Bernstein & McEachron's (RBM) treatise
on what is a scientific theory. Little did I realize that the
article would later catch up to my everyday life some
twenty years later.
I am now an anthropologist at Emory University,
and I live in the suburban Atlanta, Georgia, commu-
nity of Cobb County-a place that has recently been in
the news because of debates concerning the teaching
of evolution in public schools. I not only must write
about my results on lemur ecology, behavior, and evo-
lution, but I must also transfer the information to the
general public, especially within my community. In
my case, I give guest lectures at schools, provide work-
shops for teachers, and talk with parents and students
at coffee shops and PTA meetings.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, antievolution propo-
nents from Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Georgia
(Cobb County) brought their arguments to local school
boards, state legislatures, and even the national poli-
tical stage. For example, prior to 2002, Cobb public
school students' exposure to evolutionary biology
was limited. The subject had been excised from some
lessons and books, and students whose classes and
books did deal with the subject had the choice of opting
out of those lessons. Three primary effects were ob-
served by many of us at local universities: (1) relatively
few students went on to major in the biological sciences;
(2) students were at a disadvantage in intro-level college
biology when asked to compete with other students
who had received high school evolutionary biology in-
struction; and (3) students continued to misunderstand
and underappreciate science, especially biology.
In 2002, the Cobb County school board approved a
college-compatible biology textbook. Shortly afterward,
the board responded to a creationist-led petition by
affixing in each biology textbook stickers that read: "This
textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a
theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things.
This material should be approached with an open mind,
studied carefully and critically considered." Likewise,
similar moves were raised elsewhere under the banners
of "critical consideration," "teach the controversy,"
"alternative scientific views," and "theory, not fact"
legislation. Soon after the Cobb stickers, antievolution
proponents in Dover, Pennsylvania, required that
"intelligent design" (ID) objections to evolution be
raised before science lessons on evolutionary biology.
Reprinted with permission of Benjamin Z. Freed.
WHY WOULD A SCIENTIST, SUCH AS MYSELF,
GET UPSET OVER SUCH A STICKER?
Strictly speaking, the stickers confound student
comprehension of evolution in several ways. First,
evolution is fact and scientific theory, overwhelmingly
observed and discussed in the peer-reviewed, scien-
tific literature. To those who claim that evolution has
never been observed, I point to peer-reviewed research
on Anolis lizards, tomatoes, and North American fossil
primates, among numerous other topics. Second, evo-
lution is not a hunch, a guess, or a theory, as the term is
used in the common vernacular. To conflate scientific
theory (as described by RBM) and the vernacular use
of the term "theory" is to confound student compre-
hension of the strengths and limitations of the scien-
tific method. Third, evolution is not a scientific theory
about origins of life. It is a well-substantiated scientific
explanation for critical aspects of origins, such as its
timing, but primarily evolution is about biological
change over time. Fourth, facts themselves are muta-
ble; they are subject to reevaluation as techniques and
accuracy improve. Finally, the school board singled out
evolution. No other scientific theories (e.g., gravity,
germ theory, plate tectonics) needed to be approached
with an open mind, studied carefully, and granted crit-
ical consideration. The board went out of its way to
have students be wary of one scientific theory, the
theory at the core of modern biology.
To be clear, the school board's stibers were
completely at odds with RBM's article and the scien-
tific literature. Twenty years after my initiation into
antievolutionist arguments, here I was faced with a
sticker and policy that showed no comprehension as to
what is science, theory, and evolution, the very topics
discussed in RBM. To me, as a scientist, the sticker was
technically inaccurate, misleading, and confusing. It
was typical of a new wave of antievolutionism.
DOES THIS VERSION OF ANTIEVOLUTIONISM,
INCLUDING ID, MEET THE STANDARD OF
SCIENCE AS DEFINED I N RBM?
RBM's article was written during the early 1980s,
when biologists, legal scholars, and historians dealt
with the first legal wave of modern creationism.
After a resounding series of legal decisions against
this religious-based movement, a new wave of
antievolution approaches emerged under the name
"intelligent design" (ID). ID is a belief that a so-called
irreducible complexity of living forms is too great
to be explained by evolution. To this movement's
proponents, only an "intelligence" (e.g., an omnipotent
deity) could account for the origin and diversity of l i f e i
Strictly speaking, ID can be traced to early-nineteenth-
century theologian William Paley. Like 1980s creation-
ism, ID represents a belief about a scientific issue
rather than a scientific view of the same issue.
In recent years, biochemist Michael Behe, mathe-
matician William Dembski, and other proponents of
ID have called into question Darwinian natural selec-
tion's ability to explain origins and evolution of
organisms. For instance, they point on the one hand
to developments in the field of molecular biology,
which have shown cells to be much more complex
than once suspected. At the cellular level, ID support-
ers suggest that a bacterium's flagellum, or propeller-
like tail, could not have evolved independently of all
the complex cellular structures that move the tail.
They argue that, since all of these complex parts must
"fit" together to function, like the parts of a mouse-
trap, no one element could evolve independent of the
others, and so they must be evidence for an intelligent
designer. Other proponents of ID point to mathemat-
ical models that suggest Darwinian selection might
not be any better than random accumulations of
changes and is unlikely to explain complex living
organisms.
Fortunately, evolutionary theory is up to these
challenges. Irreducibly complex structures can evolve
from nonirreducible complexity if a structure evolves
with one function and is then co-opted for another.
Moreover, a species does not evolve in a vacuum, but
rather co-evolves alongside other species that are also
evolving-a condition left unaccounted for by the
mathematical models of evolution.
Biologists, such as Miller (1996, 1999, 2004) and
Padian (2002), have pointed out serious scientific flaws
with ID. Miller (2004) noted that the bacterial flagel-
lum is not as irreducibly complex as people have been
led to believe. ID is not considered science by anyone
actually studying evolutionary biology (see discus-
sions in Pennock, 2001; Larson, 2003; Scott, 2004) be-
cause it does not fulfill basic requirements of scientific
endeavor. Many scientific theories have been proven
wrong in whole or part, but they are scientific never-
theless because they can be tested against empirical
data. If one reexamines RBM, an ID proponent would
have to relax at least two tenets of the scientific
method: the need for testable and falsifiable hypothe-
ses, and the reliance on above-nature forces. Evolution
by natural selection is built on scientific evaluation of
testable and falsifiable hypotheses of natural phenom-
ena without the invocation of-above-nature forces.
ID fails on all of these criteria. For that reason, evolu-
tionary theory has generated a wealth of research in
which hypotheses are tested and confirmed, while
ID has produced no such research programs or
scholarship.
THEN WHY HAVE SO MANY PEOPLE
TAKEN TO I D AND OTHER FORMS
OF ANTI EVOLUTION?
To many people ID is a satisfying rubric or explana-
tion. The notion of an "intelligence" matches many
religious viewpoints or worldviews of a single, omnipo-
tent deity. Forrest and Gross (2004), for example, noted
the religious ties between ID and creationism. In an ini-
tial exploratory sociological survey of creationists,
Wiccans, and university students, Eve (2004) found
strong evidence that adherence to creationism was
more strongly related to social beliefs, attitudes, and
politics than to actual scientific literacy. Belief in cre-
ationism was more a matter of the ways that people
use to judge "truth claims" about evidence of the
ancient human past.
I suspect what Eve found occurs in my community
as well. Few people readily access the scientific litera-
ture. Many antievolutionists incorrectly but readily
equate evolution, natural selection, and Darwin. By
doing so, Darwin has been made into a strawman, one
who is viewed as being opposed to local religious
beliefs. To many people, science is used to support
religious beliefs. If it cannot do so, it must be viewed
with great skepticism. Many of these people turn to
Internet-accessible, readily available opinion, political,
and religious pieces to confirm their views. Science is
viewed as an opposing monolith that directly contra-
dicts and opposes religious belief.
AS MANY I N MY COMMUNITY HAVE ASKED
ME, HOW DOES SCIENCE CRITICIZE ITS
THEORIES? OR IS SCIENCE A MONOLITH?
Science criticizes itself primarily through peer review.
In peer review, a manuscript is sent to a journal's edi-
tor, who then solicits evaluations from independent
scientists. These reviewers receive no payment for
their time and effort. Each manuscript is checked for its
authenticity, overall scientific merit, adherence to pro-
fessional ethical and scientific guidelines, and accuracy
in review of previous works. Based on the reviewers'
comments, the editor decides whether or not to pub-
lish the article, and whether revisions or clarifications
are required before publication. In this way, peer re-
view affords the reader the assurance that an article
has fulfilled its overall scientific mission and con-
tributed to the overall understanding about a topic. If a
scientist takes issue with an article, the scientist may
write a response in publication.
This is the level of scholarship that scientists have
come to expect. I suspect that the public expects no
less of science. Responsible? Yes. Tough? You bet. Manu-
scripts get rejected all the time. We revise and resub-
mit. Democratic? Not necessarily. Scientists don't vote
in opinion polls or cast ballots about each item, but
at least scientists have a way to "critically consider"
material. If an ID follower wanted to write a scientific
research article, the peer-review process would yield
an evaluation of the article's scientific merits, ethics,
and scholarship, just like any scientific manuscript.
Science is no monolith.
To many of us in evolutionary biology and an-
thropology, ID followers have not only failed to show
clear scientific merit in method, but they have yet to
show true scholarship. Reviewing the peer-reviewed
scientific literature, one finds no research articles nor
any evidence that ID is being used to explain biology.
ID has not been shown to be a best-fit or useful scien-
tific explanation for understanding nature. In Cobb,
antievolution material that was not vetted by scientific
peer review was introduced to the public access tele-
vision, and the local op-ed pages. Many people could
not then understand why this material shouldn't be
available for science classes. Padian and Gishlick
(20021, however, have cited numerous flaws in the sci-
ence and scholarship of this material. Rennie (2002)
and Young and Edis (2004) have also discussed many
of the most frequent claims. Position statements
against ID proponents' claims have also been brought
forth by the American Institute of Biological Sciences,
the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, the National Science Teachers Association,
and many other scientific organizations, including
those from anthropology.
In Cobb, local parents sued the school board, see-
ing an unnecessary intrusion of religion into govern-
ment. Scientists from the region's major colleges spoke
up, submitted affidavits, in some cases testified, and
worked with local parents, educators, and students to
explain more about the scientific method. Although
the case is under appeal, a district judge decision
forced the school board to remove the stickers from the
texts.
Similar antievolution tactics and claims were
repeated elsewhere, most notably in Dover, Pennsylva-
nia. The school board tried to diminish evolution and
to provide alternate scientific theory discussion for its
science classrooms. Parents in the district sued the
school board, arguing an unnecessary religious intru-
sion into biology lessons. Proponents of evolutionary
biology and ID provided testimony before a federal
judge. In December 2005 the judge ruled that the tac-
tics, claims, and literature of antievolution proponents
were not divorced from religious motives. In some
cases, what was presented as an alternate scientific
view was thinly veiled creationism. The proposed
alternative scientific views, including ID, were not sci-
ence. The effect of the board's policy was to diminish
evolutionary biology education and to presuppose in
students' minds that alternate scientific views exist.
On the bright side, both Cobb and Dover have
forced educators at all levels to think more about what
is science. In Cobb, scientists and educators have
begun to interact more directly with the general public
and with each other. The school district science admin-
istration has also formed a unique partnership with
businesses and educators to improve science out-
reach, to establish greater links between teachers and
college educators, and to foster greater student interest
in science. Many of us are now re-reading and dis-
cussing philosophy of science papers.
WHAT IS THE VIEW OF GENERAL
ANTHROPOLOGY?
As a rule, anthropologists are trained to respect the fact
that different groups of people possess vastly different
worldviews. Indeed, the variation among different
ways of seeing, understanding, and making sense of
the world lies at the root of many anthropologists'
curiosity about humanity and human experience.
While anthropology teaches respect and appreciation
for such diversity, it also teaches that respect does not
equal agreement. A North American anthropologist,
for instance, may be fascinated by the origin myths or
healing rituals of aboriginal peoples in Australia,
Central Africa, or the Amazonian rainforest. But he or
she can be respectful of cultural differences and still in-
sist on taking antimalarial drugs to prevent infection,
or refuse to participate in a healing ceremony involv-
ing traditional surgery even if the host community is
convinced that it would help.
As a biological anthropologist trained in the scien-
tific method, I can appreciate the fact that some belief
systems are rooted in stories about the nature and ori-
gins of the life that are fundamentally distinct from-
and even contradict-the basic tenets of scientific
research and scholarship. Anthropology does, however,
help demonstrate that different systems of knowledge
address different questions. Some knowledge systems,
like religious traditions, address questions about the
ultimate meaning and purpose of the human life and
of the world as we know it. As RBM so clearly describe
it, science is designed to address a different set of
concerns. Rather than seeking answers to questions of
ultimate meaning, science seeks explanations for
how the natural world operates, and for how it has
come to exist as we observe it today. Science uses tools,
methods of gathering and evaluating knowledge, and
methods for determining the validity, reliability, and
relevance of such knowledge that differ markedly
from those of the world's myriad religious systems.
These tools, methods, and procedures are the very
hallmarks of science, and they are what allow scientists
across the globe to communicate and evaluate one an-
other's work through a common language.
Religious beliefs, like those motivating the ID
movement, often have profound meaning and signifi-
cance for proponents. We must nonetheless keep in
mind the fundamental distinction between forms of
religious belief and scientifically validated forms of
knowledge. While evolutionary biologists and biologi-
cal anthropologists may be deeply frustrated by the
challenges the ID movement poses for science educa-
tion and scientific literacy in the United States, this
frustration does not come from a sense of disrespect for
ID advocates' religious beliefs. Rather it stems from an
overriding commitment to the fact that different kinds
of questions demand different kinds of information,
different methods of evaluation, and different criteria
for establishing what is "true." Ultimately, anthropo-
logy teaches that religion and science aim to define and
establish different kinds of truth about humanity,
human life, and the world we live in.
Looking back, the RBM article has helped me refo-
cus and analyze science as it relates to my community
and my students. For those of us who view science as a
way of explaining many critical aspects of life, we find
an overwhelming preponderance of peer-reviewed ev-
idence for evolution. For anthropologists, evolution is
the best-fit scientific explanation for the genetic and
paleontological record, and it offers us much under-
standing about medicine, ecology, and ourselves.
Scientists 7 thorough and responsible scholarly
debates on many aspects about evolution, such as its
mechanisms, effects, and pace. To many of us in science,
evolution is a tremendous theory, one that holds
power in explaining the available scientific evidence
and the vast data yet to be discovered. Theories are
powerful and wonderful; they're not just hunches.
REFERENCES
Behe, M. 1996. Darwin's black box. The Free Press.
Eve, R. 2004. Creationism, evolution, and a struggle for the
means of cultural reproduction. American Anthropolog-
ical Association meetings. Atlanta, GA, December, 19,
2004.
Forrest, B., and P. Gross. 2004. Creationism's Trojan horse: The
wedge of intelligent design. Oxford University Press.
Larson, E. 2003. Trial and error: The American controversy over
creation and evolution. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.
Miller, K. R. 1996. A review of Darwin's black box. Creation/
Evolution 16:3640.
. 1999. Finding Darwin's God. HarperCollins.
. 2004. The flagellum unspun: The collapse of
"Irreducible complexity." In W. Dembski and M. Ruse
(eds.), Debating design: From Darwin to DNA. Cambridge
University Press, pp. 81-97.
Padian, K. 2002. Waiting for the watchmaker. Science 295:
2373-2374.
Padian, K., and A. Gishlick. 2002. The talented Mr. Wells.
Quarterly Review of Biology 77(1):33-37.
Pennock, R. T. 2001. Intelligent design, creationism, and its
critics: Philosophical, theological, and scientific perspectives.
Cambridge University Press.
Rennie, J. 2002. 15 answers to creationist nonsense. Scientific
American 287(1):78-85.
Scott, E. 2004. Evolution vs. creationism: An introduction.
Greenwood Press.
Young, M., and T. Edis (eds.) (2004). Why intelligent design
fails: A scientific critique of the new creationism. Rutgers
University Press.