Five questions for Zack Kopplin's 75 Nobel Prize winners (Part Four of my reply to Zack Kopplin)

Front side (obverse) of one of the Nobel Prize medals in Physiology or Medicine awarded in 1950 to researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Courtesy of Jonathunder and Wikipedia. Medal: Erik Lindberg (1873-1966).

Table of Contents	Part One	Part Two	Part Three	Part Four	Part Five	Part Six	Part Seven
Part Eight	Part Nine	Part Ten	Part Eleven	Part Twelve	Part Thirteen	Part Fourteen	Conclusion

Highlights:

I believe that the 75 Nobel Laureate scientists who signed Zack Kopplin's petition to repeal the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act have a hidden agenda, and I've designed a survey to prove it. In this post, I challenge Zack Kopplin to go back and ask his 75 Nobel Laureate scientists five questions.
The questions are designed to ascertain what these Nobel scientists believe that American high school students should be taught. Specifically, should American high school science students be taught that evolution is an unplanned, unguided process? Should they be taught that belief in Adam and Eve is incompatible with the findings of genetics? Should they be taught that natural selection can account for the origin of the human mind? Should high school science students be taught that the notion of people having an immaterial soul that can causally influence events in the physical world is incompatible with current scientific knowledge? Should students be taught that contra-causal free will (the idea that when you make a choice, you could have chosen otherwise) is contrary to modern scientific findings about the brain?
These questions are highly germane to the teaching of evolution in American high schools. No less than fifteen of the 75 Nobel scientists who signed Zack Kopplin's petition also signed the Nobel Laureates Initiative organized by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, submitted to the Kansas Board of Education on September 9, 2005, in which they openly declared that if you want to believe in "real" evolution, you have to believe it's an unguided, unplanned process. What's more, the vast majority of biologists now hold that belief in an immaterial human soul is at odds with our current scientific knowledge, and that contra-causal free will is also a scientifically untenable notion. The consensus view of modern scientists is that when you decide to do something, you could not have chosen otherwise, and that there is no such thing as an immaterial soul that can interact with the material world. If American high school students are going to be taught the "consensus" view on human origins, are they also going to be taught the "consensus" view on human psychology, which Darwin's theory of evolution claims to be able to explain?
I then ask the 75 Nobel scientists who signed Zack Kopplin's petition whether they believe that American high school students should be exposed to dissenting views on evolution, held by qualified scientists in the field (e.g. Lynn Margulis, James Shapiro, John C. Walton, Alfred Russel Wallace and Richard Smalley, the recently deceased Nobel scientist who declared towards the end of his life that evolution could not have occurred).
Finally, I ask these scientists whether they believe students have the right to be exposed to controversial opinions on other scientific matters, which are held by a minority of qualified scientists in the field, or whether only "consensus" views should be aired in a science classroom. Topics include the idea that global warming does not pose a significant danger to humanity; mind-body dualism; telepathy; cold fusion; and the notion that the universe we live in is a simulation created by aliens.
I believe that this survey, if carried out, will reveal that the 75 Nobel scientists who signed Zack Kopplin's petition are committed to an anti-supernaturalistic, materialistic agenda which denies the existence of a God who can influence human affairs, denies the existence of the human soul, and denies that we possess the kind of free-will that our legal system assumes that we do - i.e. contra-causal free will, or the power to do otherwise, when faced with a choice. This agenda, if successful, would not undermine the moral and spiritual values taught by the vast majority of American parents to their children, but would fatally undermine our own legal system, as people could no longer be morally blamed for their choices. Instead, criminals could simply say: "My environment made me do what I did." The view that people cannot help doing what they do is fundamentally anti-social and immoral. If 75 Nobel scientists who signed Zack Kopplin's petition want high school students to be indoctrinated with this view, then American parents should get to hear about it first.

On your Website, Zack, you wrote in a post dated May 24, 2011, that "43 Nobel Laureate scientists have endorsed our effort to repeal Louisiana's creationism law" and you issued a challenge to Congresswoman Bachmann: "Can you match 43 Nobel Laureates, or do you fold?" Since then, you've been busy collecting more signatures for your petition, and now you're up to 75. Bravo, Zack.

Now, I believe I've already matched your 75 Nobel Laureates, for reasons that I explained in Part One of my reply, but in this post, I'd like to explain why your 75 Nobel Laureate scientists fatally undermine your own case for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution - but not Intelligent Design - in Louisiana's public high schools.

To see why, I'd like you to go back to each of your Nobel Laureate scientists and ask them if they would be kind enough to answer the following five survey questions. The survey will only take fifteen minutes of their valuable time. Should you refuse to approach them, Zack, I'll have no choice but to accuse you of cowardice. And I wouldn't want to do that. If they decline to answer the questions, that's their business - but you still have a perfect legal right to ask them what they think, and I'm sure the American people would like to know.

A five-question survey for the Nobel Laureate scientists who signed Zack Kopplin's petition

The survey below, which was designed by Dr. Vincent Torley, is completely anonymous. It is intended to elicit your views on how Darwinian evolution should be taught in American high schools. Please circle the answers which reflect your views. Your co-operation in this survey is greatly appreciated.

Question 1

The first question relates to how you believe the Darwinian theory of evolution should be taught in American public high schools.

(a) In 2005, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity organized the Nobel Laureates Initiative, which consisted of a petition (printed below and available online at http://media.ljworld.com/pdf/2005/09/15/nobel_letter.pdf ) that was sent by 38 Nobel Laureates (most of them scientists) to the Kansas Board of Education on September 9, 2005, asking the Board to vote against the inclusion of intelligent design in the academic curriculum. The petition contained the following statement:

Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.

In your opinion, should American high school science students be taught that evolution is logically derived from confirmable evidence, and that it is the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

Note: For those survey participants who are interested, here is the complete text of the Nobel Laureates Initiative, which was sent to the Kansas Board of Education on September 9, 2005:

THE ELIE WIESEL FOUNDATION FOR HUMANITY
NOBEL LAUREATES INITIATIVE
September 9, 2005
TO: Kansas State Board of Education
We, Nobel Laureates, are writing in defense of science. We reject efforts by the proponents of so-called "intelligent design" to politicize scientific inquiry and urge the Kansas State Board of Education to maintain Darwinian evolution as the sole curriculum and science standard in the State of Kansas.
The United States has come a long way since John T. Scopes was convicted for teaching the theory of evolution 80 years ago. We are, therefore, troubled that Darwinism was described as "dangerous dogma" at one of your hearings. We are also concerned by the Board's recommendation of August 8, 2005 to allow standards that include greater criticism of evolution.
Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection. As the foundation of modern biology, its indispensable role has been further strengthened by the capacity to study DNA. In contrast, intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent.
Differences exist between scientific and spiritual world views, but there is no need to blur the distinction between the two. Nor is there need for conflict between the theory of evolution and religious faith. Science and faith are not mutually exclusive. Neither should feel threatened by the other.
When it meets in October, 2005, we urge the Kansas State Board of Education to vote against the latest draft of standards, which propose including intelligent design in academic curriculum.
Sincerely,
(The names of the 38 signatories follow.)

(b) Thanks to the recent publication of an article entitled, Inference of human population history from individual whole-genome sequences by Heng Li and Richard Durbin (Nature 2011, published online 13 July 2011, doi:10.1038/nature10231 ) scientists now have a very good estimate of how many ancestors our own species had at various times in the past, all the way back to 3,000,000 years ago, near the time when humans diverged from the lineage leading to modern chimpanzees. The data show that the effective population size for the human species never fell below 5,000 individuals, at any stage in human history. These findings are in keeping with a 1995 paper by Francisco Ayala (The Myth of Eve: Molecular Biology and Human Origins, Science, New Series, Vol. 270, No. 5244, December 22, 1995, pp. 1930-1936), which estimated, on the basis of DBR1 gene comparisons between humans and chimpanzees, that the minimum possible number of humans at any population bottleneck in our past was 4,000 individuals.

However, at the present time, the proportion of Americans who believe in a literal Adam and Eve remains quite large. For instance, approximately 25% of Americans currently belong to the Catholic Church, which officially "teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original state of holiness and justice" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part One, Section Two, Chapter One, Article 1, paragraph 375). An additional 26% of Americans are Evangelical Protestants, the vast majority of whom believe in a literal Adam and Eve. Orthodox Jews and Muslims also affirm this doctrine.

In your opinion, should American high school science students be taught that given what scientists now know about human evolution, it is certain beyond all reasonable doubt that the human race did not descend from two and only two people?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

(c) The following passage relates to the evolution of human mental traits. In his work, Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), Charles Darwin wrote:

"Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc. of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals."
(Chapter IV, Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals, Summary of the Last Two Chapters, p. 120.)

The Darwinist philosopher Daniel Dennett has coined the term "mind creationist" to refer to those who believe that human minds are inexplicable as a product of natural selection (Darwin's "strange inversion of reasoning", PNAS June 16, 2009 vol. 106 no. Supplement 1 10061-10065, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0904433106). At the present time, a very large proportion of the American public would qualify as "mind creationists" on Dennett's definition - especially those who believe that each human being has an immaterial human soul, that was directly created by God.

In your opinion, should American high school science students be taught that "the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind," and that human mental capacities are entirely explicable as the product of natural selection?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

Question 2

This question has to do with whether you believe American high school science students should be taught that science is committed, firstly, to materialism; and secondly, to a view of the cosmos as a self-contained system which is absolutely closed to causal interference by immaterial agents (e.g. God or the human soul), regardless of whether these agents exist or not.

(i) The following quote is taken from evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin's review (New York Times, January 9, 1997) of Carl Sagan's best-selling book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Towards the end of his review, Professor Lewontin writes:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.
(Italics are in the original. Bold emphases are mine. - VJT.)

In your opinion, should American high school science students be taught that science has a prior commitment to materialism?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

(ii) The following quote comes from a recent blog article in Discover magazine (5 December 2011) by physicist Sean Carroll entitled, On determinism. In his article, Professor Carroll writes:

Bringing determinism into discussions of free will is a red herring...
A better question is, if we choose to think of human beings as collections of atoms and particles evolving according to the laws of physics, is such a description accurate and complete? Or is there something about human consciousness — some strong sense of "free will" — that allows us to deviate from the predictions that such a purely mechanistic model would make?
If that's your definition of free will, then it doesn't matter whether the laws of physics are deterministic or not — all that matters is that there are laws. If the atoms and particles that make up human beings obey those laws, there is no free will in this strong sense; if there is such a notion of free will, the laws are violated. In particular, if you want to use the lack of determinism in quantum mechanics to make room for supra-physical human volition (or, for that matter, occasional interventions by God in the course of biological evolution, as Francis Collins believes), then let's be clear: you are not making use of the rules of quantum mechanics, you are simply violating them. Quantum mechanics doesn't say "we don't know what's going to happen, but maybe our ineffable spirit energies are secretly making the choices"; it says "the probability of an outcome is the modulus squared of the quantum amplitude," full stop. Just because there are probabilities doesn't mean there is room for free will in that sense.
On the other hand, if you use a weak sense of free will, along the lines of "a useful theory of macroscopic human behavior [that] models people as rational agents capable of making choices," then free will is completely compatible with the underlying laws of physics, whether they are deterministic or not.
(Italics are in the original. Bold emphases are mine. - VJT.)

In your opinion, should American high school science students be taught that the belief that each human being possesses an immaterial mind, which is capable of causally interacting with the material world, is incompatible with the current state of scientific knowledge?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

(iii) In your opinion, should American high school science students be taught that belief in a God (or supernatural Agent) who is capable of causally interacting with the material world and altering the course of events is incompatible with the current state of scientific knowledge?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

(iv) One very popular definition of free will refers to what is called contra-causal free will: the belief that there have been at least some situations in your life where there was more than one choice that you could have made, and in which you could have decided to act otherwise than the way you actually did act.

In your opinion, should American high school students be taught that such a belief is contrary to modern scientific findings?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No. (c) They should be taught that contra-causal free will is simply meaningless.

Question 3

This question seeks to elicit your opinion on whether American high school science students should be exposed to (but not taught) the following views, held by a minority of scientists who dissent from Darwinian evolution.

(i) The view held by the late Professor Lynn Margulis (d. 2011), that natural selection could not explain evolution, and that symbiotic mechanisms were the driving engine of evolution.

In an interview with Discover magazine on 16 April 2011 (available online at http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/16-interview-lynn-margulis-not-controversial-right ), Professor Margulis stated that "Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create." She also described symbiogenesis as a major source of innovation in evolution, and stated that "There is no gradualism in the fossil record."

Professor Margulis' statement that Neo-Darwinism "is in a complete funk" can be found in a 1991 review by C. Mann, "Lynn Margulis: Science's Unruly Earth Mother," in Science 252 (5004): 378–381, doi:10.1126/science.252.5004.378, PMID 17740930.

In your opinion, should American high school science students be exposed to Professor Margulis's views?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

(ii) The non-Darwinian evolutionary theory espoused by Professor James Shapiro, a geneticist who dismisses natural selection as a shaping force in evolution.

For instance, on the very first page of his new best-selling book, Evolution: a view from the 21st century, Professor Shapiro writes: "Innovation, not selection, is the critical issue in evolutionary change."

Additionally, in an article entitled, "Mobile DNA and evolution in the 21st century" (Mobile DNA 2010, 1:4 doi:10.1186/1759-8753-1-4, published 25 January 2010), Shapiro maintains that vertebrates and flowering plants appeared within a single generation, as a result of whole genome doubling [WGD], a mechanism which he describes as follows: "WGD is yet another evolutionary process outside the Darwinist perspective that occurs suddenly (that is, within a single generation) and simultaneously affects multiple phenotypic characters."

In your opinion, should American high school science students be exposed to Professor Shapiro's views?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

(iii) The opinion of Professor John C. Walton, that:

(a) the chance of forming even one "useful" RNA sequence can be shown to be essentially zero in the lifetime of the earth;
(b) life on Earth therefore could not have originated from non-living matter as a result of blind chemical processes; and
(c) the view that life was designed by an Intelligent Agent deserves a fair hearing.

Professor Walton is a Research Professor of Chemistry at St. Andrews University, and a Chartered Chemist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Professor Walton made his views on the origin of life public in a recent talk for the Edinburgh Creation Group entitled, The Origin of Life, given on September 21, 2010, and available online at http://vimeo.com/415018 .

In your opinion, should American high school science students be exposed to Professor Walton's views?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

(iv) The views which were held by Darwin's contemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), on evolution during the latter part of his life, and which were set forth in his book, The World of Life (London: Chapman and Hall, 1910). While Wallace fully accepted evolution by natural selection as a fact which explains the diversity of living things, he also believed on empirical grounds that unguided natural processes were, by themselves, unable to account for: (a) the origin of life (see the quote below); (b) the appearance of sentience in animals; and (c) the emergence of human intelligence. Wallace believed that the process of evolution had been continually guided by some kind of Higher Intelligence (whoever it may be), and that this Intelligence had intervened in history to bring about the emergence of life from non-living matter, the subsequent appearance of sentient beings and finally, the emergence of intelligence (in human beings).

Note: The evidence that Wallace was skeptical about attempts to explain the origin of life in purely materialistic terms can be found in his essay, The Origin of Life. A Reply to Dr. Schaefer (S700: 1912), which was printed in the Everyman issue of 18 October 1912:

I submit that, in view of the actual facts of growth and organisation as here briefly outlined, and that living protoplasm has never been chemically produced, the assertion that life is due to chemical and mechanical processes alone is quite unjustified. NEITHER THE PROBABILITY OF SUCH AN ORIGIN, NOR EVEN ITS POSSIBILITY, HAS BEEN SUPPORTED BY ANYTHING WHICH CAN BE TERMED SCIENTIFIC FACTS OR LOGICAL REASONING.
(The capitals are Wallace's. - VJT.)

(Wallace's view that natural selection could not account for the evolution of human intelligence is common knowledge.)

In your opinion, should American high school science students be exposed to Wallace's views?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

(v) The view that Darwinian evolution could never have taken place, which the late Nobel Prize winning chemist Richard Smalley came to espouse in 2005, after reading the books Origins of Life and Who Was Adam? authored by Dr. Hugh Ross (an astrophysicist) and Dr. Fazale Rana (a biochemist).

Note: The evidence regarding the change in Dr. Smalley's views comes from an online article by Dr. Hugh Ross and Dr. Fazale ("Fuz") Rana at their Web site, Reasons to Believe, dated December 20, 2005, and entitled, Creation Scientists Applaud PA Judge's Ruling Against 'Intelligent Design' - Dressing Up ID Is No Substitute for Real Science (Web address: http://www.reasons.org/controversial-topics/intelligent-design-movement/creation-scientists-applaud-pa-judges ). In the article, Dr. Smalley was quoted as saying:

"Evolution has just been dealt its death blow. After reading Origins of Life, with my background in chemistry and physics, it is clear evolution could not have occurred. The new book, Who Was Adam, is the silver bullet that puts the evolutionary model to death."

In your opinion, should American high school science students be exposed to Dr. Smalley's views?

Answer: (a) Yes. (b) No.

Optional: If you think that American high school students should be exposed to some of the foregoing views but not others, would you care to briefly explain the criterion you use to decide which views on evolution American high school students should be exposed to? Please leave your comments in the space below.

Question 4

This question seeks to elicit your views regarding whether American high school science students should be permitted to discuss highly controversial opinions on various scientific matters, which are held by a minority of qualified scientists in a given field, or whether they should only get to hear about theories (such as Darwinian evolution and atomic theory) which the vast majority of scientists in that field regard as well-established facts - i.e. theories which reflect the current scientific consensus.

Imagine that you are on a committee whose task is to write regulations and guidelines for science teachers in Louisiana. In particular, which, if any, of the following scientific opinions would you explicitly forbid teachers to bring up in a science classroom, which opinions would you discourage teachers from mentioning in a science classroom, and which opinions would you permit teachers to mention in a science classroom?

(i) The opinion held by a small minority of highly respected climatologists (e.g. Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer), that the anthropogenic global warming that has occurred to date is very slight; that man-made warming from greenhouse gas emissions in the 21st century will not exceed 2 degrees Celsius for the planet as a whole; and that man-made CO2 emissions do not constitute a significant threat to the Earth's ecosystems.