The following is taken from a summary I wrote for my Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design course. I realized today that I haven't yet shared any of my reflections from that class, so, here we go. This quote is taken from an article in which Robert Pennock (an evolutionary theorist) is responding to William Dembski (an Intelligent Design theorist).
[Dembski] writes, “Design theorists are no friend of theistic evolution.” (I have quoted this line on several occasions, but in one article the last word was printed “evolutionists” instead of “evolution.” Let me assure Dembski that the mistake was unintentional and not “by design.” I do not know how the error was introduced, but I should have caught it during proofing and I apologize for missing it. Dembski took offense at the error, and was quite correct when he complained that there is a huge difference between refusing friendship with a group of people rather than with their ideas.
- Robert Pennock, “The Wizards of ID,” Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics, p. 648.
I find Pennock’s open apology (which occurs, literally, in the middle of his article) fascinating. In the context of a rather contentious debate, which the Evolution-ID debate surely is, it is entirely possible and in fact probable that parties on either side of the debate will become offended at the writings and/or actions of those on the other. Even simple misunderstandings have the potential to create heated arguments and drive the wedge of mistrust between academics. The creation/evolution/ID debate is volatile. In part, this is due to the political considerations involved. However, I believe there is also something more interesting going on. In science and philosophy, one must take care not to reconstruct the argument of an opponent as a straw man. Scientists and philosophers, rather, give their opponents the benefit of the doubt and construct the opposing argument in as strong a manner as possible. Part of this is professional courtesy; after all, science and philosophy, strictly speaking, are supposed to be objective and impersonal. That is, when someone criticizes my argument, I should not take their criticism as a personal attack. Nor, on the other hand, should criticisms of an argument be constructed in such a manner so as to criticize the person rather than the argument; this is the ad hominem fallacy.
However, there is increased risk of lines being crossed between criticism of arguments and criticism of people in the case of the evolution/ID debate. Why is this so? Intelligent Design and other forms of creationism (whether they want to admit it or not) have a built-in ideological dimension. Dembski and his colleagues in the ID camp aren’t merely disinterested scientists making arguments for argument’s sake. Rather, these scientists are committed theists (most of them Christian theists) who have a lot invested in the notion of theism. Any theist would agree that to believe in God (and here I refer to the personal God in which Dembski and others probably believe) necessarily involves more than intellectual assent, but rather involves the heart. There is a vital spiritual dimension to belief in God. This leads me to two points. First, it is easy to see how criticism of Intelligent Design can easily become personal. Criticism of the way these scientists have chosen to justify their belief in the divine might be considered tantamount to denying God and attacking theism. Second, it could be that the “professional courtesy” of science and philosophy breaks down to some extent when it comes to arguments for God. Though they are framed like scientific arguments, theories like Intelligent Design have, as I have argued, an important ideological dimension that tends make them personal, at least more personal, for instance, than a theory about the mechanism of photosynthesis. There could be a sense in which ID theorists and evolutionary theorist alike have a “heretical imperative.” For ID theorists, denial of God vis a vis the denial of ID and subsequent argument in favor methodological naturalism is tantamount to heresy. The imperative for the ID theorists is to convert the unbelievers and to correct their unbelief. For the evolutionists, the denial of methodological naturalism as the only valid scientific worldview is, too, tantamount to heresy; it is thus incumbent upon the Pennocks and Dawkinses to rid the scientific community of such grievous errors. In other words, both sides are forced by this debate to defend their turf; both sides see the other as encroaching on their sacred territory.
Given the above reflections, Pennock does the right thing by apologizing to Dembski. Perhaps the only way to avoid bitter heatedness in this very contentious debate is to apologize early and often when one’s opponents have been offended.
