I watched "Now with Bill Moyers" last night on the local PBS affiliate. One particular segment was entitled "The Battle Over Evolution", and his guest was a British scientist and author by the name of Richard Dawkins, who has also been a professor of zoology at the University of California at Berkeley and at Oxford University. Specifically, the topic of the interview focused upon supposed widespread concern within scientific and intellectual circles regarding a sizeable percentage of the American public. Specifically, a growing number of Americans seem to not only question the certainty of Darwinism and the theory of evolution, but also favor the teaching of "Creationism" in public schools as a viable alternative explanation for the present state of life on earth.

At first, I found myself in agreement with Moyer's guest in that theories originating in religious traditions and without scientific basis have no place in a science class. That's not to say that such faith-based explanations of our origins are without academic value. Indeed, they are significant at a fundamental level to other areas of study such as history, anthropology, sociology and of course, ethics. Just not science.

Dawkins further postulated that the scientific evidence for evolution, albeit chiefly circumstantial, is overwhelming, and thus although many of the details and nuances remain unresolved, the larger theory itself is essentially a scientific certainty. Again, no argument from me.

That's when the interview started to get interesting. Moyers added, in an apparent routine attempt to buttress his guest's positions, that proponents of "Creationism" are presently attempting to re-package their belief under a new name, "Intelligent Design". “Intelligent Design”, according to Moyers, is essentially just a modern-sounding label plastered over the scientifically baseless school of thought that embraces a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. This is actually a quite dishonest characterization of "Intelligent Design".

The theory of Evolution basically holds that all present life progressed from more simplistic forms, and that the impetus for this gradual change was what Darwin called "Natural Selection". "Natural Selection" holds that in all life forms, random genetic mutations regularly produce alterations in physiological traits, and those traits which prove to be survival and reproductive assets get passed on to subsequent generations. Conversely, traits which hinder the prosperity of the species are eventually eliminated from the gene pool. Further, random natural events, such as those that caused the great mass extinctions of Paleozoic times, can profoundly effect what traits are and are not advantageous to the survival and propagation of a species at any given time.

The belief in "Intelligent Design" disputes none of this. The only point of contention is with respect to the use of the word "random" within the description of this process. Believers in "Intelligent Design" look to another body of circumstantial evidence: that of the absolute efficiency, functional precision and breathtaking beauty of life on our planet. All of these things can very reasonably be said to at least suggest the possibility of the presence of an unseen guiding hand in the development of the present natural universe: what we call God.

All of this notwithstanding, Dawkins at this point made an even further leap, and this is what really got my attention. He suggested - and I'm paraphrasing just slightly - that the scientific certainty of the theory of Evolution basically disproves the existence of the Almighty, at least as far as the concept of "God" is commonly understood. He defined this "Unscientific God" as a supernatural personality that inhabits an extra dimensional realm with which we cannot initiate communication. To be fair, Dawkins defined himself as being profoundly religious in a another sense: that is, his own personal definition of "God" constitutes the collective representation of those aspects of the natural universe which are not as of yet fully understood or explained by science. However, according to Dawkins, the scientific certainty of the theory of evolution definitively disproves the existence of "God" as metaphysical being. I am not a particularly religious man myself, but this struck me as being not only rather intellectually arrogant, but ironically and perhaps more importantly, completely unscientific.

After all, what is science? It is the pursuit of explanations that have a demonstrable correctness. Further, scientic truth is arrived at in one of two ways. Often, it is accidentally stumbled upon. The most famous example of this, according to popular folklore at least, is Sir Isaac Newton first recognizing the physical force we call gravity after being hit on the head with an apple while dozing beneath a tree on a lazy afternoon. However, the second way of arriving at scientific truth is the formulation of an unproven hypothesis based upon observational evidence. This is then followed by controlled experimentation that definitively proves or disproves the validity of the hypothesis. No such "scientific method" has as of yet confirmed or debunked the existence of a heavenly creator, so the idea of "Intelligent Design" remains a valid scientific possibility.

To illustrate this further, let me provide a scientific example, and that is the current postulation of "String Theory" within the scientific discipline of physics. Simply put, "String Theory" holds that matter and energy are synonymous at the fundamental level, and that their fundamental component has the behavioral qualities of a vibrating strand. Variations in the characteristics of the vibrations of these strands subsequently dictate the behavior and nature of the subatomic particles such as quarks and neutrinos that they comprise. We have observed these subatomic particles, albeit indirectly through experimentation, so we know with scientific certainty that they do in fact exists. However, the idea that they themselves are further divisible into "strings" is based solely on a body of observational conjecture at present, and a disputed body of conjecture at that. Does that mean that "String Theory" should be discarded? Of course not! After all, just because we can't "see" these strings, doesn't mean that they don't exist. We have reasonable circumstantial and observational evidence that they may in fact exist, so the theory merits further consideration. At the very least, the existence of these "strings" has not been scientifically disproved as of yet. The same is true of who and what is commonly referred to as "God".

I agree that the Judeo-Christian Bible is not a History book, and thus the Earth was not actually created in 7 days. The book of Genesis is after all a religious text, and religious texts are of course largely metaphorical with respect to what they attempt to communicate. However, to suggest that the recognition of this truth by extension disproves the fundamental beliefs of religion at large is not only quite a stretch, but represents a violation of the scientific method, which ironically is the one thing that Dawkins professes to hold sacred.

I'd like to add one other related side note. At the conclusion of this interview segment, my local PBS affiliate went to a "pledge break", seeking private donations in support of it's broadcasting. I personally love PBS, so this is not an indictment of them in any way. However, I had to laugh when the pledge host essentially characterized Bill Moyers as God's gift to journalistic integrity, if you'll pardon the pun. Professor Dawkins, as with all of Moyer's interviews that I have personally seen, did not have a single one of his postulations challenged in any way by Moyers. On the contrary, as always, Moyers very obviously designed his line of questioning for the sole purpose of affirming his guests' viewpoints. Good journalism exposes the facts for the public. It does not attempt to lead them to a conclusion, which is a violation of journalistic integrity, the "scientific method" of the journalist profession.