I spend a bit of time teaching and talking to junior-high and high-schoolers, especially homeschool students. One of the things that I try to teach them is how to approach teachers who are Darwinists when they get to college. Anyway, I though some readers might be students and might appreciate the advice. Obviously, this is not gospel-truth, but it might give you a place to start from.
Remember that Even if Your Professor is a Darwinist that Doesn’t Mean Your Professor is Dumb
First and foremost, remember that you are a student. Your professor, wrong-headed as they may be on evolution, still has more experience and wisdom in their field than you do. At the very least, they have been doing it longer and are more widely read. You should remember that your primary goal in school is not to be right, but to learn. I have always found that even when someone else is dreadfully wrong, there are usually things that I can learn from their approach. In addition, sometimes you may even find them to be right, and for you to be wrong. I have learned most about biology, for both ID and Creation, by reading evolutionists. I find several of them have found ideas that are extremely profound and helpful for someone who is both a Creationist and an ID’er like myself. You may have to tweak them to apply them correctly, but if you spend your time arguing rather than listening, you will never find them.
Evolution is a Big Word – Use it to Your Advantage
One of the things that organizations like the NCSE have done is to generate a “consensus” about “evolution”. However, as I pointed out here, the effort to forge a consensus on “evolution” meant that they had to make the definition so broad that it can include pretty much anything, including Intelligent Design as well as Creationism. As it stands now, the technical definition of evolution is broad enough that anyone can make legitimate and correct use of the term.
So, students, use this to your advantage. Never say that you don’t believe in evolution – because it simply isn’t true. The term “evolution” is now so broad, that as long as you think that you look different from your parents, you can say that you “evolved”. So, don’t fall for a trap if a professor asks if anyone doubts evolution. You don’t! You may doubt certain theories within evolution, but so does everyone – there are many speculative theories in evolution that not everyone ascribes to. Why should you be forced to be singled out because there are certain parts that you disagree with?
Are you not a selectionist? Well, neither is Larry Moran. Do you not believe that we all descended from a single, universal common ancestor? Well, neither do a lot of biologists, who have a range of opinions on the subject.
Therefore, if the conversation comes up, be specific about your objections. Say, “I totally agree that we have evolved, and that many organisms share a common ancestor, but I disagree that every single organism shares a single common ancestor.” Or say, “I agree that we evolve and change, but I disagree that natural selection is a capable mechanism for generating complex adaptations and novelty.” By being specific, you prevent the other party from employing vague generalizations. If you had instead said, “I don’t think evolution is true because I don’t believe we all share a common ancestor,” then you open the door for the professor to refute you by pointing to types of change that you probably agree with. Don’t give them that opportunity. Be specific about your disagreement, and make them give evidence that is specifically in support of their position.
Many ID’ers and Creationists have gotten their PhD in evolutionary biology, not to criticize it per se, but because evolutionary biology, as it is currently defined, has a broad enough conception of evolution to include these theories. That isn’t to say that the professors are broad-minded enough to be nice to people to hold these theories, but, on the definitions, a lot of what ID’ers and Creationists are interested in studying is reasonably called evolutionary biology. As an example, people who are interested in computability theory are also interested in learning the limits of computation. Doesn’t it make sense that people who are interested in evolutionary theory also be interested in learning the limits of evolution? Creationists believe that certain organisms all came from a single pair. Aren’t they just as interested as everyone else as to how they got to be so different? Thus, “evolution” is not the boogey-man, because evolution specifies neither a specific sequence or a specific mechanism, but rather the broad question of whether things change.
Be Careful of the Bait and Switch
I have seen this one over-and-over again. If you say, “give me an example of a random/haphazard mutation generating a beneficial mutation,” the professor is likely to respond by saying something like, “well, the immune system generates mutations that allow antibodies to adapt to new antigens.” The statement, as it stands, is 100% correct. However, it is not an answer to your question. Why? Because adaptation to antibodies is a cell-directed process, not a haphazard process. There is a tiny amount of randomness involved. However, out of 3,000,000,000 base pairs, the mutation system focuses on the 600 base pairs that matter. That means that it is .00002% random and 99.99998% directed by the cell. However, the word “mutation” in the sentence probably made you think that it was unguided. I’m not saying your professor is doing this intentionally, but it happens accidentally all of the time. They might say, “well such and such evolved”. They may even be right. But the question wasn’t “did it evolve?”, but “by what mechanism did it evolve?”
Be Open to Having Your Ideas Challenged
Another important thing to keep in mind is that you may be coming to class with bad conceptions. Even when they are basically right, sometimes they have rough edges. The best way to polish off your ideas is to have critics critique them. Just because you have an idea that gets shot down doesn’t mean it is completely wrong. It might mean that it is completely wrong, or it might mean that you are not all the way correct yet. Most theories in science start off disproven, and end in irrelevance. It isn’t that they are wrong, it is rather than, when they start, they are still fuzzy around the edges, so there are a lot of cases where the evidence goes the other way, because the phenomena isn’t fully understood. Then, by the time we have all of the edges smoothed out, someone will have come out with an even deeper way of understanding the phenomena, so the theory becomes somewhat irrelevant. Don’t be afraid of being part of this process. Good ideas take time to develop. Don’t expect your first, off-the-cuff answer, to have all of the solutions. But the fact that your off-the-cuff answer isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it is definitely wrong, either. It just means you have more thinking to do.
What’s really interesting about the ID movement is that people think that if they disprove a single conception in ID theory, that it means that the whole enterprise is broken. Ha! I can’t imagine a single area of science where such a notion would be remotely taken seriously. Imagine if someone were to say that all of evolutionary biology should be discarded because there was a single equation in it that wound up being faulty. What a ridiculous notion!
My own best work has come from when I offered a half-baked notion that I truly believed, but was then shot down. What did I do? Did I go and cry home to Mama? Heck no! I thought about it. What was it about my position that was right? What was wrong? How could it be more explicit? Perhaps it needed reformulating? Perhaps I needed to recruit another field to help? This is where good ideas come from. The most dangerous thing is not having your ideas challenged, but presuming that it will be easy, and presuming that the other people will have no answers. The key is learning to use those answers constructively to improve yourself.
Be Open About Yourself
This is the most dangerous part of my suggestions. Many people say, “keep your head low until you get tenure.” Screw that. As I said earlier, remember that you are in school to learn, and it is important to be humble. But you don’t want to get there on false grounds, either. This fails for a variety of reasons. First, everybody has one more grant to get before they come out and say what they really feel. There will never be a good time. If you practice being a coward, then being a coward is what will come easiest. If you instead practice being forthright about yourself without being prideful, that will be what becomes second-nature to you. Second, if you come out after you get tenure, then that raises questions. Were you lying before-hand? If you were lying about your position, does that mean that you were lying about your research? It is better to be open up-front, so that later it doesn’t look like you have been deceitful. Finally, you are probably missing some really important contributions, and making some negative ones. Maybe there is a student that could have been encouraged by you. Maybe if you allowed your real thoughts to come through, you would have had a breakthrough.
You may get kicked out of the program (either explicitly or just not being welcome), but often times you find out that people grow to respect you. And, if they kicked you out for being yourself, why did you want to be part of their club anyway? There are other ways to contribute. I know it is a lot of work that feels like it got flushed down the drain. Trust me, I have lost two children, I know what it feels like to have major parts of your life just ripped out of you. But, you know what? There are good things ahead.
Be Sure You Understand Before You Criticize
This goes with the first point. Sometimes, things sound crazy the first time you hear them, but wind up making a lot of sense. Your first goal shouldn’t be to criticize, but to learn. Is the reason you are having trouble because it is wrong, or just because you don’t understand it?
Along with this, keep in mind Aristotle’s exhortation – “it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to hold a thought without agreeing with it.” You should be able to examine a thought just like you examine a stone or an organism. You should be able to spot its strengths and its weaknesses. Every idea has strengths and weaknesses, and it is good practice to identify strengths in your opponents ideas and weaknesses in you own. It also teaches humility.
Don’t Always Jump on the First Inconsistency
This is something I learned early. Sometimes, even if you find an inconsistency, that is not where the trouble lies. Sometimes, it just indicates that there is a deeper problem that needs to be examined. For instance, I was taught that (a) mutations are the result of accidental copying errors, (b) organisms change by mutation and selection, and (c) organisms can have new functionality through this. Now, the thing is, I (and many other Darwin-doubters) automatically jumped on (b) and (c), and kept assuming (a). We had all assumed that (a) was experimentally derived. But it turns out that (a) is probably the most problematic of the statements. Once you recognize that mutations can arise through directed means, then it is not so hard to imagine organisms can evolve new (or at least new-ish) functionality. However, that was a deeper issue. Often, but not always, the surface issue is just indicative of a deeper issue that needs to be addressed.
Also, Question the Materialism
Going with the previous point, sometimes the real, underlying issue is materialism. That is, the professor might not believe that mind has distinctive causal powers at all. Sometimes, this can generate a good discussion (though sometimes it is more useful with classmates than with a professor who is stuck in his materialist worldview). Ask your classmates if they believe that there is such a thing as “choice” and “creativity”. If they do, they are most of the way to ID already. Ask them if they believe they have a soul? If they do, then they should immediately go out and sign the “Dissent from Darwin” list, since they believe that a very important part of the human animal (the soul) did not arise through mutation and selection. Materialism and Darwinism go hand-in-hand, because if creativity and choice are real, then they are non-mechanical – i.e., spiritual. If they are spiritual, it seems difficult to see how they could have evolved through DNA. If they didn’t evolve through DNA, then that means that Darwinism is incorrect on one of the most profound (and obvious) aspects of the human animal.
The question is, why is it so obviously wrong there? The answer is that Darwinism and Materialism are inextricably linked. They are not allowed to propose such things under the constraints of their materialist philosophy. However, if their materialist philosophy is driving them so far in the wrong direction about obvious truths in modern humanity, might it be just as wrong when asking about the causes available in the remote past?
Don’t Be Suckered Into Mechanisms
Going with the previous point, many people who criticize ID ask for a mechanism for the design. This is assuming the truth of materialism, rather than asking. Creativity is inherently non-mechanical. Also, it presumes that the question of mechanics is the most important one. However, logical causes, when they play a role, are almost always more important than mechanical or historical causes, even when they all occur together.
Think of it this way – let’s say I have a computer program written by a friend. I hand it to you and ask you to analyze it. Then I ask, “what keyboard did they use to type it?” Now, they may have used a keyboard to type it, but what kind of a question is that? Does it even matter? Doesn’t that question even miss the entire point of a computer program? Products of design focus on logical causes such as organization, symbols, meaning, and purpose. Those are the important questions. Yes, historical questions are worthwhile. But that doesn’t mean we will always have the answers in the form we want them, and they may not even be theoretically answerable in the form we are asking! Being a materialist puts you in a straightjacket. It is ridiculous for a non-materialist to assume such a straightjacket even for a moment.
The world is bigger than that.
Sometimes, Humility and Listening Wins More Points than Talking
I could write on this one, but it turns out I already did, so if you are interested, read this older post.
Anyway, I wish you all well in your classes with Darwinian teachers. If you have other ideas and suggestions, please post below!
NOTE – I added “Don’t Be Suckered Into Mechanisms” and “Also, Question the Materialism” after I initially posted this.