John G. Roberts, Supreme Court Nominee

Some comments on Roberts from the 1 July 2005 edition of The Washington Post:

--"long been considered one of the Republicans' heavyweights amid the largely Democratic Washington legal establishment"

--practiced law at the D.C. lawfirm of Hogan & Hartson from 1986-89, 1993-2003

--Principal Deputy Solicitor General in Bush41 White House, 1989-93

--served in the Reagan White House as both an aide to the Attorney General, 1981-82, and an aide to the White House Counsel, 1982-86

--attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School

--clerked for Justice William H. Rehnquist

--"the question marks about Roberts have always been ideological"

--"his Republican party loyalties are undoubted, [but] he is not a 'movement conservative', and some on the party's right-wing doubt his commitment to their cause"

--"His paper record is thin"

In my mind, all of these comments (and other information about Roberts that has been published since his nomination) coalesce to demonstrate the potential that the man has an a Supreme Court Justice. Certainly, there is no doubt that the man is an intellectual--a quality highly desired of Justices, in my opinion; however, the question remains whether he is an intellectual in the Antonin Scalia sense (who seems determined to undo any liberal interpretation of constitutional law in the past one hundred years) or whether he is an intellectual in the Sandra Day-O'Connor sense (who judged cases individually without any apparent ideological goals in mind, and who seemed to be the voice of intellectual moderation on the Court).

I certainly believe Roberts can become an effective Justice, but will he be effective because he joins the other ideological conservatives on the Court to confound the course of American jurisprudence? or will he be effective because he becomes the voice of moderate reason--always testing the law on a case-by-case basis, effectively keeping the balance on the Court? At this point, I have no reason to believe the Senate will not confirm Judge Roberts' appointment to the high Court. Let us only hope that Roberts follows the same path as his predecessor rather than just occupying the same seat.

Commentary on 'Intelligent Design' from Natural History magazine

From a 2002 article in Natural History magazine, debating evolution vs intelligent design. The commentary is a summary of the recent history of the intelligent design movement by a "philosopher and cultural historian who has monitored its history for more than a decade." I have included here the entire text of the commentary and provided a link above.

						The Newest Evolution of Creationism Intelligent design is about politics and religion, not science. By Barbara Forrest The infamous August 1999 decision by the Kansas Board of Education to delete references to evolution from Kansas science standards was heavily influenced by advocates of intelligent-design theory. Although William A. Dembski, one of the movement's leading figures, asserts that "the empirical detectability of intelligent causes renders intelligent design a fully scientific theory," its proponents invest most of their efforts in swaying politicians and the public, not the scientific community.
						Launched by Phillip E. Johnson's book Darwin on Trial (1991), the intelligent-design movement crystallized in 1996 as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), sponsored by the Discovery Institute, a conservative Seattle think tank. Johnson, a law professor whose religious conversion catalyzed his antievolution efforts, assembled a group of supporters who promote design theory through their writings, financed by CRSC fellowships. According to an early mission statement, the CRSC seeks "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies."
						Johnson refers to the CRSC members and their strategy as the Wedge, analogous to a wedge that splits a log -- meaning that intelligent design will liberate science from the grip of "atheistic naturalism." Ten years of Wedge history reveal its most salient features: Wedge scientists have no empirical research program and, consequently, have published no data in peer-reviewed journals (or elsewhere) to support their intelligent-design claims. But they do have an aggressive public relations program, which includes conferences that they or their supporters organize, popular books and articles, recruitment of students through university lectures sponsored by campus ministries, and cultivation of alliances with conservative Christians and influential political figures.
						The Wedge aims to "renew" American culture by grounding society's major institutions, especially education, in evangelical religion. In 1996, Johnson declared: "This isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." According to Dembski, intelligent design "is just the Logos of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." Wedge strategists seek to unify Christians through a shared belief in "mere" creation, aiming -- in Dembski's words -- "at defeating naturalism and its consequences." This enables intelligent-design proponents to coexist in a big tent with other creationists who explicitly base their beliefs on a literal interpretation of Genesis.
						"As Christians," writes Dembski, "we know naturalism is false. Nature is not self-sufficient. … Nonetheless neither theology nor philosophy can answer the evidential question whether God's interaction with the world is empirically detectable. To answer this question we must look to science." Jonathan Wells, a biologist, and Michael J. Behe, a biochemist, seem just the CRSC fellows to give intelligent design the ticket to credibility. Yet neither has actually done research to test the theory, much less produced data that challenges the massive evidence accumulated by biologists, geologists, and other evolutionary scientists. Wells, influenced in part by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, earned Ph.D.'s in religious studies and biology specifically "to devote my life to destroying Darwinism." Behe sees the relevant question as whether "science can make room for religion." At heart, proponents of intelligent design are not motivated to improve science but to transform it into a theistic enterprise that supports religious faith.
						Wedge supporters are at present trying to insert intelligent design into Ohio public-school science standards through state legislation. Earlier the CRSC advertised its science education site by assuring teachers that its "Web curriculum can be appropriated without textbook adoption wars" -- in effect encouraging teachers to do an end run around standard procedures. Anticipating a test case, the Wedge published in the Utah Law Review a legal strategy for winning judicial sanction. Recently the group almost succeeded in inserting into the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 a "sense of the Senate" that supported the teaching of intelligent design. So the movement is advancing, but its tactics are no substitute for real science.

The Roman Catholic Church and Evolution

Well, I am finally back to my blog! Covered up this summer with first one thing and then another, I have been remiss in posting regular commentaries (not since June 11!). My god, what was I thinking? So here I am; back again to tackle the ongoing and ugly debate about evolution and 'intelligent design'--now falling under the auspices of Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna.

A few weeks ago, the Cardinal wrote a commentary for the NYTimes in which he attacked the notion that the Roman Catholic Church is accepting of the scientifically-established Theory of Evolution. Schonborn argues that the church is okay with the notion of common ancestry, but not with the neo-Darwinian viewpoint that evolution occurs randomly and devoid of some external higher power acting consciously to create new life. Apparently, even the new pope has now taken up this argument by saying in effect that each new life is a creation (or re-creation, I suppose) of divine intervention. The argument from the Church has now become one in which no life can exists without the action of God to create it.

Perhaps it is just coincidental that Cardinal Schonborn has close personal ties to some of the leading proponents in the United States of the creation 'science' movement that is now mascarading as an 'intelligent design' argument. First of all, let us get straight that although evolution is considered a THEORY, this does not mean that it is unsettled science. In the world of science, the term THEORY has much different meaning than its connotation in the everyday world. Scientific theory is defined as: "The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory." Whereas most anti-evolution arguments today use the meaning: "An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture." SCIENTIFIC THEORY is not an assumption, and it is not based on LIMITED information. SCIENTIFIC THEORY represents the working principles upon which the science is based--that is, the theory represents the vast amounts of known information and data that exists as it has been compiled, and it represents the basic commonalities that drive our knowledge of the known biological world. All of modern biology uses as its basis the known principles and established facts of evolution to understand our basic make-up and to attempt to explain our past and future.

As Anthony Grafton writes in The New Yorker magazine of 25 July 2005 (p. 48-49):

In a recent column in the Times, Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna surprised those who believed that the Catholic faith had come to an accommodation with Darwin by arguing that the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is 'ideology, not science.' To support this claim, he cited no scientific data; rather, he cited 'the real teaching of our beloved John Paul'--clear proof that he has no idea what science is, or, for that matter, ideology....There is every reason to believe that [Pope Benedict XVI] shares the Cardinal's impoverished understanding of the scientific enterprise, and that his views will shape Catholic teaching on a wide range of scientific and medical issues.

Certainly even those who believe in the essential importance of divine creation cannot reject (neo-Darwinian) evolution as the method an omniscient God would choose to form his creation. To argue that God must act in every moment to sustain this creation seems as short-sighted as to argue that the earth is flat. An all-knowing and wise God would certainly not need to act more than once to assure the essence of life (and every creature) in the universe; but, in the mind of a person with immature faith, perhaps continual action by God is necessary. A mature faith understands above all else that God works in mysterious ways and that it is beyond the ability of mankind to know the mind of God. We can only test the natural world in an attempt to discern the mechanisms in the universe through which we exist and are sustained.

In my mind, to argue whether it is God that created these mechanisms, or whether they exist because of random chance is a matter for belief while the mechanisms themselves are matters for science. It seems to me that one can believe in God and accept evolution (and the Big Bang, etc.) as God's gifts to the universe; or, one can believe in God and accept evolution, etc. as random events that occurred without the direct influence of a higher power, but that act in accord with Higher principles; or, one can be an atheist and see all of nature and the physical universe as happenstance and chance occurrence. The Roman Catholic Church would apparently add a fourth category: God created the universe, continues to take an overly active role in our everyday lives, and continues to 'manually' create every creature and plant that exists in the universe today--I'm sorry, but to me, that viewpoint makes God way too interested in the minutiae of our lives. God has always and continues to be interested in the BIG PICTURE and he leaves the little decisions and the everyday choices to us (free will) while permitting the universe that he has set in motion to expand, bring forth new worlds and new lives, and end the lives of stars, people, plants as is necessary for the overall benefit of the universe.

I'm finished now.