An after the movie conversation.

After viewing expelled, I went out for a drink with Dr. Brian Lang and we had a fun conversation about evolution and ID. It seems I have been opposed to Dr. Lang a few times, in a debate over stem cells and a newspaper article about an anti-evolution argument from Alvin Plantinga (see here and here). But there has never been any antagonism and I find Dr. Lang very engaging and discussions with him are just that--discussions, not arguments.

Dr. Lang says that he is agnostic about evolution, and somewhat willfully ignorant. He doesn't know many of the arguments and has avoided getting into too much depth because it seems like a nasty area. He clearly leans against evolution, since he has offered several anti evolution arguments, but he seems open.

We discussed the movie. We both agreed it was very one sided and biased. He had read Expelled Exposed before the movie, so he knew how it distorted the cases of oppression. He also easily saw that ideas can be abused by Nazis and many others, and that does not affect the validity of the theory. He knew of course that religion has been abused many times as well.

He compared it to Flock of Dodos, which was shown on campus last year. He thought they were similar, both showing the other side to be bad--evil for Expelled, backwoods hicks for Dodos. I disagreed some but didn't pursue it farther. However, I don't think it holds that well. Dodos main point was to criticize biologists for their poor communication skills. Randy Olson of Dodos did allow the creationists to at least make their cases. He was open about his bias and showed where ID was wrong, but as I watched it I was very frustrated. The creationists were allowed to say many lies or misrepresentations, and very few of them were challenged. I think that he tried very hard to be fair to the other side, enough so that I thought it was unfair to my side. I know of some incriminating statements by Michael Behe that Olson left out of the final cut, because it made Behe look too bad.

Of course, I watched that film through my eyes. I know at least some students thought it didn't show both sides. I'm sure some viewers of Expelled thought it was fair. Maybe. It's hard to see how. Dr. Lang agreed that Expelled was worse. I think Dodos was fair, while obviously having a point of view.

Dr. Lang argued that ID is a philosophical debate rather than scientific, so it should be taught in philosophy classes. I disagreed with the first part and agreed with reservations about the second. Dr. Lang's admitted ignorance of the issues was evident here. He is familiar with the philosophical arguments, but is unaware of most of the arguments offered by ID. I told him that 90% of their arguments are scientific. Questions about the second law of thermodynamics, transitional fossils, the probability of selection, the limits of microevolution, the age of the earth, etc., are all scientific arguments. Dr. Lang also seemed unaware that most in the ID movement are opposed to theistic evolution.

I fully agree with Dr. Lang about the remaining part. Philosophical arguments about design can be taught in a philosophy classroom. I do not object and do not believe it would violate church-state separation. However, we have to be vigilant. A teacher in California offered a philosophy class on ID to a high school. When she showed her curriculum, it was arguments about a Noachian flood, young earth, thermodynamics, etc. It was creation science renamed as philosophy, but it's content was science, not philosophy. The philosophical arguments for design mostly predate evolution. A class in philosophy would focus on Aristotle or Aquinas or Paley vs. Hume and others. I think once it moves to any proposed mechanism of design, it has crossed into science.

Dr. Lang offered one more argument which I must admit I found weaker, and we were still discussing it as we had to leave because they were mopping around our feet. He argued that it is fine if we misteach things or students don't know things. We all teach mistakes or errors. Students are OK for it. He used relatively minor points in detail in his philosophy classes as examples, not major theories. I asked if it would be OK if we teach students that the atomic theory is wrong. He seemed to be OK with that. However, when I offered Holocaust denial, he thought it was more problematic. I'm not sure the basis for the distinction. It seemed to be that one has moral or political consequences, but I didn't pursue it.

Teaching the "scientific" form of ID is not just getting some facts wrong. It is fundamentally misrepresenting the science and failing to teach students about the single most important theory in biology. Evolution is part of every field of biology and permeates it. I could discuss here the practical effects of evolution--its use in genomics, medicine, agriculture, etc. I briefly mentioned some to Dr. Lang. But that is not the main point. If someone isn't versed in science, they might not understand the implications of misteaching, but I have a harder time understanding the view that knowingly teaching falsehoods in any field is OK.

Is it OK if students don't know the atomic theory? We didn't have time to pursue it, so I don't know if he just feels that it's just science so it doesn't matter. He said we could teach them some version of phlogiston and they would be OK. Perhaps Dr. Lang has a kind of relativism about scientific theories. I don't think we would be doing students a favor to misrepresent history, economics, science, or any other field. Education is about learning truth and the accumulated ideas of mankind.

We did not have time to finish the conversation, so I'm not exactly sure of Dr. Lang's views on this. Perhaps we will have time to pursue it some other time. I look forward to more stimulating discussion.