Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed -- AAAS Response

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed -- AAAS Response is a short video produced in 2008 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) as a response to the documentary movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, although it was based on a longer movie made in 2006.

Being based on an earlier movie, the video does not directly address Expelled, but instead concentrates on Intelligent Design.

The movie is self-contradictory, misrepresents Intelligent Design, and factually incorrect in places.

The movie was accompanied by a statement decrying Expelled, which statement is not covered here—this article addresses just the video. The movie consists almost entirely of various people offering comments. It has no interviewer, no narrator, and little in the way of graphics beyond text introducing each section and describing the people featured. It offers no figures, no quotes from ID proponents, and no evidence in support of its claims.

The people featured in the video are (in order of appearance):
 * Dr. Alan I. Leshner, CEO of the AAAS and the Executive Publisher of Science, the AAAS journal.
 * Dr. Frances S. Collins, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and (in 2007) founder of Biologos, a theistic evolution group.
 * Jennifer Miller, Biology, anatomy, and physiology teacher of a high school in the Dover area of Pennsylvania.
 * Robert Eshbach, science teacher of a high school in the Dover area of Pennsylvania.
 * Dr. Jo Ellen Roseman, Director of Project 2061, AAAS.

Unindented quotes in blue are transcripts of statements made in the film.

"Are science and religion in opposition?"
Right from the start, the video presents this as a question of "religion" vs. "science/evolution", which latter two are treated as synonymous. In fact, it is only ardent atheists who see any conflict between science and religion. Creationists and ID proponents don't. Rather, they see a conflict between a particular "scientific" view (evolution) and the evidence.

One has to wonder what "faith" Collins is talking about here. Collins does not claim to simply have "faith" in a supernatural being, but claims to be an evangelical Christian. Yet Collins rejects, on the basis of the science, the historicity of Adam and Eve as taught by Christianity. That is, Collins believes that a biblical claim can be addressed by science.

But if evolution is supposed to explain the origin of the variety of living things, and religion explains the origins of everything, how can they be addressing different domains; how are they looking at different questions?

Which two views? Science and religion? As mentioned, only ardent atheists—not the focus of this video—see a difficulty. Or Evolution and Christianity? If that is the case, he hasn't explained it, despite saying that he should.

Collins does not explain how it makes faith look foolish to argue that there is scientific evidence compatible with religion. Rather, scientific evidence that contradicts religious views—such as the existence of Adam and Eve—is what makes faith in such things look foolish. As outspoken atheist and scientist Richard Dawkins says: "Oh, but of course, the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn’t it? Symbolic? So, in order to impress himself, Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent individual? As I said, barking mad, as well as viciously unpleasant."

These comments serve only to give the impression that one can accept both evolution and the claims of Christianity, but fail to explain the obvious contradictions, and in any case are irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Intelligent Design is a valid form of scientific enquiry.

What Collins ignores is that many other scientists disagree that science can't answer those questions. "Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either."

- William Provine

What Collins fails to note is that it is the critics of Intelligent Design that are giving this false impression. The leading Intelligent Design think-tank has this to say on this point: "It depends on what one means by the word "evolution." If one simply means "change over time," or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory. However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, an unpredictable and purposeless process that "has no discernable direction or goal, including survival of a species." (NABT Statement on Teaching Evolution)."

Is Collins—the self-described evangelical Christian—arguing that evolution is a purposeless process? Miller claimed that God used evolution; by implication that evolution was the process He used to achieve his purpose. But Intelligent Design does not reject evolution, except insofar as it denies the existence of purpose. It is not the Intelligent Design proponents claiming "God or evolution"; it is the atheists. But this video is critiquing Intelligent Design, not atheism.

Is Eshbach here claiming that he can see scientific evidence supporting God's role in creation? Doesn't this contradict one of the most common criticism of Intelligent Design—that there is no evidence supporting it?

"What is Intelligent Design? Is it science?"
Almost by definition? From the Discovery Institute again: "The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

There is nothing in that definition that even hints that it's unscientific. Many armchair critics will say that invoking an intelligence makes it unscientific, but forensic science, archaeology, and the SETI program all invoke intelligence without their scientific status being rejected.

Yet Intelligent Design proponents have pointed out that it is possible to "… construct testable predictions about the type of informational properties we expect to find in nature if an intelligent agent were at work in designing a natural object".

This is nothing more than a lie repeated ad nauseum by critics of Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design invokes intelligence, not the supernatural. The lie has some superficial appearance of truth for two reasons. One is that most people will naturally presume that the intelligence is God. However, God is not the only option (an alien race is a theoretical possibility), and identifying the intelligence is not the same thing as concluding that an intelligence is supported by the evidence. The other is that many (but not all) of the supporters of Intelligent Design are Christians. However, many of the supporters of evolution are atheists, but most scientists won't reject evolution as unscientific on those grounds. The Discovery Institute says that "intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural". Critics might disagree, but in doing so they are effectively claiming that the Discovery Institute is lying. Is Roseman accusing it of lying, yet not providing any evidence in support of this accusation?

This is a modern, atheistic, definition of science. Science was founded by creationists, and they did not define science as seeking only naturalistic explanations.

This is a half-truth that implies a God of the gaps. Intelligent Design proposes that scientists can find positive evidence of design in nature.

This is a typical evolutionist tactic: assert the correctness of evolution as though that constitutes evidence in its favour. And Collins is incorrect about the place of evolution in biology. Biology existed before Darwin, and owes little to evolution. Theodosius Dobzhansky famously said that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution". But Evolutionist Massimo Pigliucci disagrees: "Dobzhansky['s]... statement is patently wrong, as an even cursory examination of the history of biology makes clear. For instance, developmental biologists had done a lot of highly fruitful research throughout the 19th and 20th centuries even as they ignored Darwin. And molecular biologists made spectacular progress from the 1950’s though the onset of the 21st century, again pretty much completing (sic) ignoring evolution."

Creation Ministries International has a Question evolution! campaign, with one of the questions being "Where are the scientific breakthroughs due to evolution?" No good answers have been provided.

Is Collins suggesting that we know everything there is to know about evolution? That there are no gaps in our knowledge of it? In any case, that is not the main argument of Intelligent Design, as has been shown above.

As already shown, Intelligent Design is not trying to tear down evolution. It merely disagrees with the part of the hypothesis that says that it is purposeless; that there is no design to it. Is the Christian Eshbach who claims "seeing how God's hand works in nature" now claiming that it is purposeless?

Another unsubstantiated assertion.

"Can we move forward to improve science education?"
The content of this section bears no relationship to its title. Education is not discussed. Instead, the two straw-man claims that Intelligent Design is religious and is anti-science are given yet another airing.

If it's a gimmick to pit science against religion, what is it to pretend that Intelligent Design is doing that? Dishonesty?

If it's time to stop fighting, why is the AAAS continuing this fight with falsehoods, straw-men arguments, and this self-contradictory video?

Summary
Although it's true that this video was based on a longer version made before the movie Expelled, it was nevertheless put together as a response to that film, but largely fails to address the movie, concentrating more on Intelligent Design itself.

Yet it spends much of its time defending evolution, not finding fault with Intelligent Design. Although Intelligent Design accepts evolution (but proposes a modified version in which purposeful intelligence is involved), much of the argument in this video is that Intelligent Design is wrong because evolution is right. It fails to offer more than the most minimal argument as to why Intelligent Design is not science, and even then does so by gross misrepresentation of Intelligent Design.

In the movie Expelled, Richard Dawkins concedes that if there was an intelligent designer, we should be able to find evidence of that, thereby conceding that Intelligent Design is, in principle, a legitimate field of study. The people featured in this video do believe in an intelligent Designer, but nevertheless argue, without addressing Dawkins' logic, that Intelligent Design is somehow not science. By rejecting the possibility of Intelligent Design, they are essentially claiming that the world is naturalistic, which is the opposite of saying—as Miller explicitly claimed—that God is the creator.

External link

 * The AAAS video on YouTube.