Jesse Cohen is an intelligent design advocate without realizing it. Although he says that he endorses the current theory of evolution, he doesn’t really understand the theory, nor does he understand the philosophical implications of his position.
Cohen is committing the fallacy of equivocation. When he defines theistic evolution or evolutionary naturalism, he is simply pointing out the fact that it is not necessarily the case that evolution and God are inconsistent. Indeed it is true that the theory of evolution says absolutely nothing about whether God exists or not. On the other hand, the theory in no way requires the existence of God. In fact the whole point is to explain the diversity and complexities of biological organisms without having to use supernatural explanations. My point was merely a semantic one; the absurdity of theistic evolution would be like saying theistic gravity or theistic Bernoulli’s law or even unicorn-believer theory of relativity.
But Cohen’s definition is not as harmless as he makes it. When he uses the definition theistic evolution in his argument, he means not only that the theory of evolution and God are not necessarily inconsistent but that God some how affected the human evolutionary process and gave us some sort of “intelligence-guided evolution,” which he conveniently does not detail; an attempt to wedge God in an inherently naturalistic theory. Thus, he changes definitions in mid-argument and commits the fallacy of equivocation: he defines evolutionary naturalism as a harmless trivial statement but then redefines it in a way that is inherently contradictory by the definition of a scientific theory. He switches from a passive God to an active God. If someone wanted to believe that God had something to do with our creation, then they should do it honestly and not try to argue that they promote the theory of evolution while back handedly trying to shove God into a theory that does not need it.
Cohen is also ignorant about the mechanisms of the theory of evolution not to mention ignorant of statistics. So the intelligent design advocates argue this: Suppose we have a box of organic molecules, which has all of the necessary molecules to make a fully functioning human being. If we shake this box, the chance of getting a fully functioning human being is one in a billion (or some arbitrarily conjured up large number). The theory of evolution cannot explain complex human beings. In parallel, Cohen argues in the same way: Suppose we have a collection of beliefs, which make a fully truth-conducive belief system. If we randomly select these beliefs, the chance of getting a full truth conducive belief system is one in some large number. Thus the theory of evolution cannot explain truth-conducive belief systems in humans.
Unfortunately this is an old intelligent design argument that comes from a straw man of evolution. The point of evolution is that it explains these seemingly one in a billion chance occurrences with relative ease.
It seems pretty obvious that if you get closer and closer to a truth-conducive belief system, then our chances of survival go up. If Cohen can grant that having truth-conducive beliefs increase survival rate, then it doesn’t seem mysterious how we got this highly complex truth-conducive cognitive faculty. Evolution answers the question, and at no point did I have to wedge God in my explanation or put any sort of mysterious “intelligence-guided” process, whatever that even means.
Cohen also commits a common fallacy that intelligent design advocates make: he makes it seem as if the theory of evolution and theistic evolution (intelligent design) exhausts all of the theories that could possibly explain the diversity and complexity of life. Theistic evolution and evolutionary naturalism aren’t the only two possible theories. Merely knocking down evolutionary naturalism does not support your theory if the two theories do not exhaust all of the possible theories. Thus the onerous is on you why theistic evolution and “intelligence-guided evolution” is some how more legitimate than unicorn evolution and “unicorn-guided evolution”. Theories must stand by themselves and give evidence and justifications in support of the theory alone; merely showing the weaknesses of another theory does not do the job.
I should note that if your philosophical theory denies a prominent scientific theory, you are probably wrong. For instance, if it were the case that my philosophical theory somehow denied “naturalistic theory of gravity” and an “intelligence-guided rotation of the earth around the sun” was required, I am probably wrong. Good philosophy tends to use the scientific knowledge that we have currently and build on it. Philosophy of the mind necessarily has to be in line with modern neurology. Moral philosophy about homosexuality has to take into account the research that shows that homosexuality isn’t something that most people choose. Metaphysicians have to allow for quantum mechanics and the laws of physics. Likewise any philosophy about the diversity of life or where we got our complex cognitive system is necessarily going to use the theory of evolution.
Ken Ueda is a senior math, physics and philosophy triple major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
