James Fetzer’s recent article, “Evolution and atheism: Has Griffin reconciled science and religion?” (
Synthese
[2011] 178: 381-396) purports to offer a well-founded critique of David
Ray Griffin’s philosophical arguments for “a version of theistic
evolutionism that can do justice both to the facts that count in favor
of evolution and those that count against the neo-Darwinian theory of
it” (Griffin, 2000, p 243). Fetzer claims that Griffin’s detailed
characterization of neo-Darwinism is inaccurate, “exemplifying the straw
man fallacy, where an exaggerated version of a position is presented in
order to knock it down” (p. 382). Fetzer not only makes strong claims
for the inadequacy of Griffin’s work on evolutionary theory, but also
asserts that Griffin has made fundamental errors of logic and argument
and is not “morally justified” in holding the views he propounds.
Fetzer’s article, however, fails to back up these claims.
Amazingly, Fetzer does not provide any evidence that he has actually read Griffin’s major work on the subject under discussion,
Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts
(Griffin, 2000). Chapter 8, “Creation and Evolution”, is the longest
chapter in the book, at approximately 29,000 words a short book in
length in itself. Although the book is included in Fetzer’s References
section, he does not make any specific citations to it, and his argument
is entirely based on a very short pamphlet (Griffin, 2006;
approximately 5,000 words), written for religious laypersons, not for a
scientific or philosophical readership. This is easy to determine
because Griffin’s book and pamphlet differ in terminology and in the
order and density of argument. Because Fetzer’s article does not engage
Griffin’s ideas directly or in detail, as a genuine response to the
book would require, and because Fetzer employs the pamphlet’s
terminology and sequence, it would seem that the pamphlet is all he read
of Griffin’s work. Although in his References section four titles are
attributed to Griffin, in reality only three were written by him
(Fetzer’s “Griffin, D.R., 1999” is misattributed), and on the evidence
of his article, only one was read by Fetzer, the short pamphlet
described on its back cover as one of the “Fresh Approaches” series of
“big ideas in bite sizes.”
Fetzer would have done well actually to have read the book by Griffin,
who in his writings is a model of clarity. Perhaps because of this
failing, Fetzer repeatedly shows that he has misunderstood Griffin. In
the introductory section, he says: “Insofar as Darwin appears to have
believed that evolution and theism were compatible, one of the most
important contributions of Griffin’s argument, provided it is
well-founded, will be to demonstrate that Darwin was wrong” (382). But
this is a point on which Darwin and Griffin agree. Griffin’s argument
is based not only on a critique of neo-Darwinism’s atheism (as well as
its materialism and sensationalism), but also on a conception of theism
which is adequate to the established facts of evolution. Griffin does
not criticize Darwin for being a theist; he seeks, like Darwin, to show
that evolution and theism are compatible. Like Darwin, Griffin argues
against supernatural interventions by God in the creation of new
species. But unlike Darwin, he does not have to resort to the dodge of
restricting God’s influence on the development of life to the “initial
creation.” Griffin proposes a version of theism that is fully
naturalistic, in which God’s influence operates in the present just as
it did in the past.
Then Fetzer admits that his own previous point is wrong, saying
“Strictly speaking, Griffin does not claim that Darwin was wrong or that
evolution and theism must be incompatible, but rather fashions his
argument on the basis of his version of ‘Neo-Darwinism.’ Most
contemporary biologists … would be neither inclined to adopt his
definition nor to affirm the incompatibility he asserts.” Fetzer here
falls far below the standard of clarity maintained by Griffin. Fetzer
seems to be trying to say that most contemporary biologists would reject
Griffin’s characterization of neo-Darwinism as atheistic. He says that
this is merely an assertion by Griffin, which implies that Griffin does
not back up the claim. And it is true that in the pamphlet relied upon
by Fetzer, there is no quotation from established spokespeople for
neo-Darwinism. But in his booklength presentation of his argument,
Griffin documents this aspect of neo-Darwinism, showing that it is
portrayed as atheistic by many neo-Darwinists, such as William Provine,
Richard Dawkins, John Hedley Brooke (on the enthusiastic response to
Darwin’s naturalistic theory of evolution by contemporary proponents of
atheistic science, e.g. John Tyndall), Heinz Pagels, and Steven Weinberg
(Griffin, 2000, 242, 247-249).
Fetzer claims to be writing as a “philosopher of science.” He asserts
that Griffin “offers thirteen theses for distinguishing Neo-Darwinism
from Intelligent Design. These fall into three broad categories,
namely, science, metaphysics, and morality. No doubt it will come as no
surprise that a philosopher of science might differentiate between them
differently by sorting them into ontological, epistemological, and
axiological instead” (382-383). But the first task for the philosopher
of science, before “differentiating … differently” surely must be to
know what he is “differentiating.” For in fact, Griffin’s fourteen (not
thirteen – the pamphlet again!) dimensions of neo-Darwinism are not
“theses for distinguishing Neo-Darwinism from Intelligent Design.” They
are dimensions of the complex theory of modern neo-Darwinism per se.
Nor does Griffin in
Religion and Scientific Naturalism divide
them into categories as described by Fetzer; a more complex breakdown
into categories than Fetzer’s description was used by Griffin in his
pamphlet to help readers control the quantity of ideas presented.
Fetzer seems to suggest that this device is somehow central to Griffin’s
argument, but this is just another indication that he did not read the
book.
In section 1 of his article, Fetzer says: “The position presented here
will be that the justifications Griffin provides for his ‘third way’ are
more illusory than real, that there are more plausible versions of
evolution that are less amenable to his critique, and that his third way
confronts an imposing challenge in the form of William K. Clifford’s
‘ethics of belief’…. According to Clifford, we are morally justified in
holding a belief only if we are logically justified in holding that
belief – meaning, we are not morally entitled to hold any belief unless
we have sufficient evidence to warrant that belief” (383). These are
very severe criticisms. Fetzer here explicitly says that the
“justifications Griffin provides” for his version of theistic naturalism
are illusory; that Griffin’s portrayal of neo-Darwinism is inaccurate
and that his criticisms don’t apply to neo-Darwinism accurately
understood; and that Griffin is not morally justified in believing what
he does believe about neo-Darwinism.
One would expect that Fetzer would need to make careful demonstrations
to back up each of these claims. But he does not in fact do that at
all. He does not present any counter-argument to the arguments in
Griffin’s book for his version of theistic naturalism. Evidently his
restriction of his reading to the pamphlet has resulted in his own
unjustified belief that Griffin has not provided solid “justifications”
for his proposals, but in fact Griffin has done so in detail, not only
in
Religion and Scientific Naturalism, but in several other books as well, including
Whitehead’s Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy (SUNY Press, 2007),
Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism (Cornell University Press, 2001),
Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Problem (University of California Press, 1998), and
Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality
(SUNY Press, 1997). Nor does Fetzer specify the tenets of his “more
plausible” versions of neo-Darwinism, or cite even one proponent of the
neo-Darwinism which he claims would not be subject to Griffin’s
criticisms.
Fetzer shares some of his own ideas about the philosophy of science in
his attempt to suggest that there are logical errors in Griffin’s
approach to evolutionary theory. But the errors are all on Fetzer’s
side. He shows his own remarkable ignorance of the scientific study of
evolution when he claims that “science is the discovery of laws of
nature on the basis of which events that occur during the course of the
world’s history are subject to systematic explanation and prediction (or
retrodiction)” (384). The science at the root of the study of
evolution on earth, paleontology, is a historical science, not an
experimental one. It does not seek to make predictions (let alone
“retrodictions”). Evidently Fetzer’s own theories of science are
particularly inadequate to deal with the science of paleontology. And
the adequacy of the “systematic explanation” provided by neo-Darwinism, a
body of theory built on (a subset of) the facts provided by
paleontology, is precisely the subject of contention. Furthermore,
Fetzer fails to support his assertion that his own preferred
“abductivist conception” of science is applicable to paleontology, let
alone to Griffin’s critique of neo-Darwinism.
Fetzer consistently misunderstands Griffin’s arguments, i.e., Fetzer’s
own arguments against Griffin are full of errors. He says, “When
Griffin attempts to recast the course of evolution as a manifestation of
divine actuality, it is difficult to discern a difference between them”
(385) Although what the word “them” refers to in this sentence is
unclear, the best guess would seem to be that it refers to the two
theories of evolution, neo-Darwinism and Griffin’s theistic
evolutionism. Fetzer continues, “There appears to be no way to
determine if one sequence of events is more or less in accord with
divine actuality than any other.” But now the best guess to make sense
of the previous sentence is undermined, as Fetzer seems to be talking
about specific sequences of events in earth’s history. Fetzer appears
instead to be saying that there is no way to distinguish between
sequences of events which have been influenced by the “divine actuality”
and those which have not. But this is again a misunderstanding of
Griffin’s entire argument, which is precisely that all events in earth
(and universal) history have been influenced by God.
The question is how best to interpret the data provided by paleontology.
Griffin bases his critique on aspects of these data that neo-Darwinism
fails to interpret convincingly, and in his book he does so at great
length. But Fetzer has no stomach for the task of taking on Griffin’s
arguments fairly, saying “I am more interested in the general features
of Griffin’s position than I am in most of its details. For example, I
shall not resist his non-standard use of the term ‘Neo-Darwinism’”
(385). Yet earlier he had claimed that Griffin’s version of
neo-Darwinism amounts to a “straw man” designed to be easily “knocked
down,” so his leniency at this point in the article is quite odd.
Fetzer next asserts that Griffin has both “acknowledged” and “ignored”
discoveries in molecular biology that have been integrated into the
“modern synthesis”, and then lists “causal mechanisms of evolution,”
implying that Griffin has ignored some of them, but not specifying
which. Fetzer actually includes genetic engineering and artificial
selection in the list, indicating again that he does not himself have a
strong grasp of the subject on which he opines. A more serious failing
here, however, is that all the “mechanisms” he lists operate only in the
dimension of microevolution and do not address the areas where
neo-Darwinism so spectacularly falls down: the complete lack of
intermediary forms in the fossil record, the trend toward increasing
complexity, and the origin of life, all treated in detail by Griffin in
Religion and Scientific Naturalism.
Fetzer next provides a potted overview of Griffin’s careful
characterization of the major dimensions of neo-Darwinian theory. He
starts his summary: “I am focusing on the thirteen theses – which
exclude the thesis of predictive determinism he endorsed in Griffin
(1999) – used to define the position he calls ‘Neo-Darwinism’ as
presented in Griffin (2000, Chap.8, 2006)” (385). This is strong proof
that Fetzer did not read
Religion and Scientific Naturalism,
where predictive determinism is in fact treated as dimension seven
(Griffin, 2000. 249-250). Of course there is no legitimate reason to
exclude this dimension of Griffin’s argument. This false claim by Fetzer
enables him to restrict his inaccurate summary of Griffin’s argument to
the remaining thirteen dimensions, which he renames as “theses,”
organizes in a different sequence and dismisses with almost no actual
examination or pertinent argument. A sample of the quality of his
treatment is his statement, in discussion of Griffin’s dimension two,
macroevolution, that “I am sure that I am not the only one to have
observed that much of the resistance to Darwin’s general hypothesis
[i.e. ‘descent with modification’] might have been mitigated by the use
of the phrase, ‘ascent with modification’ instead, where our species
thus represents the pinnacle of evolution rather than some kind of
residual outcome” (386). If this is not a joke and inappropriate, it is
a remarkable semantic lapse. In all versions of Darwinism, “descent”
is a technical term, not a metaphor.
Fetzer makes no attempt, as a careful scholar should, and as Griffin
habitually does, to summarize his opponent’s arguments accurately and to
respond to them directly. Instead, Fetzer repeatedly shifts the focus
from Griffin’s arguments to areas of his own (perhaps) expertise, which
almost always are side-issues when they are not completely unrelated to
Griffin’s concerns. Even with this approach, and providing a measure of
his discomfort in the task he has set himself, he continues to make
gross errors of understanding and argument. Take as yet another example
his summary of Griffin’s fourth dimension of neo-Darwinism,
uniformitarianism. First, Fetzer lifts Griffin’s definition from his
pamphlet word for word: uniformitarianism “holds that only causal
factors operating in the present can be employed to explain past
developments.” Then Fetzer interprets the term as follows: “This
suggests that laws of nature may obtain at one time during the history
of the universe but not at other times” (387). He has completely
reversed the meaning of Griffin’s sentence. The point of
uniformitarianism is that the laws of nature are assumed not to change
over time and space, to provide a basis for inference, measurement, and
other methods of scientific reasoning.
As another example of the quality of Fetzer’s argumentation, take his
next thesis, positivism, which is upheld by neo-Darwinism but which
Griffin rejects. Positivism is the doctrine that “all causes of
evolution must be potentially verifiable through sensory observations”
(Griffin, 2000, 248). Fetzer makes the following erroneous and
irrelevant statement: “Even classical mechanics can only be subjected to
indirect tests based on the paths of the planets, the orbit of the moon
and its influence on the tides, and the fall of apples from trees, for
example, because gravity is a non-observable force that affects all of
these phenomena.” Fetzer is evidently unaware that gravity is a
measurable quantity, that varies over space and time, and is continually
measured by scientists for many different purposes. He then concludes,
“Thesis (T5) is not an element of any serious theory of science”
(387-388). I would hope readers would not take this conclusion on faith
after an argument of this caliber. As Griffin explains, positivism “is
still thought by many to be essential to truly scientific explanations
[and] is virtually identical with the insistence on exclusively physical
or material causes, in that only such causes are in principle
detectable through the physical senses” (Griffin, 2000. 248-249). It is
indeed very hard to understand how Fetzer can categorically assert that
positivism “is not an element of any serious theory of science.”
Fetzer, who again quotes from Griffin’s pamphlet to define “atheism”
(Griffin’s fifth dimension of neo-Darwinism; 2000, 247-248), infers from
his limited reading that Griffin, a “distinguished” theologian (as
Fetzer admits at the outset), cannot distinguish between atheism and
agnosticism: “Griffin is hardly the only thinker to confound atheism
with agnosticism” (388). Surely warning bells should have tinkled in
Fetzer’s mind before committing to an accusation like this in writing.
Could it never have occurred to him that such a fundamental error is a
very unlikely one for Griffin to make, and that perhaps he doesn’t
understand Griffin’s argument? (I have already noted above the various
scientific authorities quoted by Griffin in
Religion and Scientific Naturalism who have heralded the atheistic explanation of life provided by neo-Darwinism.)
Enough has been said to indicate the extraordinarily low quality of
Fetzer’s engagement with David Ray Griffin’s ideas, and further examples
might only try the reader’s patience. Suffice it to say that the essay
does not improve as it runs down to its end. Fetzer continues to
misunderstand, distort or dismiss Griffin’s arguments, on
neo-Darwinism’s gradualism, nominalism, nihilism, and amoralism, random
variation, and evolutionary progress, simply asserting that they are
“either trivial or false” (390) where he is not talking, often
erroneously, about something irrelevant. In fact, however, Griffin
makes detailed, careful arguments for every one of his fourteen
dimensions of neo-Darwinism, quoting extensively from the most prominent
proponents of the theory to support his characterizations. In
addition, his book as a whole makes a powerful case for a naturalistic
theism that supports his proposal for a theistic evolutionism better
able to explain the full range of paleontological evidence.
It is Fetzer’s own claims that are totally unsupported. David Ray
Griffin’s important work in this field should not be dismissed by
readers of
Synthese on the basis of Fetzer’s “critique”, which, as I
have shown, is wholly inadequate. It is indeed hard to understand how
his article could have been published after peer review. Let me quote
Fetzer himself in this regard: “If you bias an argument by committing
elementary fallacies, it is difficult to be taken seriously, since your
conclusions will not be justified even if they follow from your
premises” (389). It is clear that it is Fetzer, not Griffin, who
commits “elementary fallacies.” In contrast, for an example of
scholarship of the highest quality on this topic of the highest
importance, I recommend the genuine intellectual adventure which
Griffin’s extraordinarily fine book
Religion and Scientific Naturalism provides.
References
Griffin, D. R. (2000).
Religion and scientific naturalism: overcoming the conflicts. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Griffin, D. R. (2006). Evolution without tears: a third way beyond
neo-Darwinism and intelligent design. Claremont, CA: Process and Faith,
(pamphlet)
Tod Fletcher