Authorized

Belief:
Framing Debates about Origins in 21st Century America

John Durant
Program in Science, Technology & Society, &
MIT Museum, MIT

March 2014

Draft: Not to be cited or quoted without the authors permission.


WHATS the use of history? There are many appropriate answers to this question; but
among them is the elementary fact that, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, the
past exerts a continuing influence on how we think and act in the present. Not least, the
very language we deploy in our efforts to make sense of the world around us is laden with
the multiply metastasized memories of countless stories, episodes, and events. Thus, we
dub a one-size-fits-all solution to a problem procrustean; we describe what we take to be
an extreme political position as being either left or right; we term an unusually strong or
firmly held religious conviction (or, increasingly, a strong conviction of any kind)
fundamentalist; and so on, and on. In these and countless other linguistic tropes and turns
of phrase, history lives on in the course of daily speech. This is not to say, of course, that the
meanings of such tropes and turns of phrase are historically fixed; on the contrary, their
connotations continue to evolve, as theyre constantly appropriated and re-appropriated in
different contexts; but nonetheless, they come to us with vapor trails (the term is
appropriated, of course, from 20th century aviation) of historical associations.
In this workshop, were exploring the work that is done in science and scientific
debate by the deployment of terms such as heresy, apostasy and orthodoxy. These, of
course, are all tropes drawn from the long history of (mainly western) religions and
religious conflicts. To call those with whom one agrees or disagrees heretics or apostates,
or alternatively, to designate them as orthodox or unorthodox (or, less commonly,
heterodox) is to assimilate them to some greater and presumptively more significant
dispute; more than this, it is to exercise a form of implicit moral and even political judgment

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upon them. Orthodoxy isnt merely, as the dictionaries have it, right belief; its belief that is
religiously, socially, or politically authorized. By the same token, heresy is unauthorized
belief. Dubbing a particular opinion orthodox may, according to ones point of view,
amount to calling it not merely right-headed but righteous, or else wrong-headed and
unrighteous; either way, the opinion in question is assimilated to some altogether larger
institutional and/or ideological cause; alternatively, we may say that it is framed in ways
that help us to know how to think about it.1
Ive found it stimulating to re-think some recent public debates about the theory of
organic evolution with the help of the rhetorical notion of (un)authorized belief. In doing so,
Ive been struck by how powerful are some of the framing metaphors and motifs by means
of which such debates continue to be conducted. Among other things, the persistence of
certain tropes and figures of speech in this area of terms like Darwinism (how easily this
trips off the tongue, and yet how puzzling, really!), and ultra-Darwinism, and
Darwinisticism, and, yes, Darwinian orthodoxy, to name just a few betokens the extent
to which matters evolutionary remain fraught and multiply contested in our culture. In
order to illustrate this point, and hopefully to illuminate some of what is entailed -
intellectually, socially, and politically - by choosing to invoke the language of (un)authorized
belief in relation to science, I shall discuss two recent episodes, superficially very different
in character, in the continuing debate about evolution in American culture. The first episode,
surrounding the publication of a book by a well-known philosopher, is the more highbrow
of the two cases; the second, an encounter between a scientific showman and a
representative of so-called Young Earth Creationism, is certainly less erudite. Considered
together, however, I hope these episodes have something to offer to the agenda of this
workshop.

_ _ _ _ _

1Matthew Nisbet and Chris Mooney have suggested the concept of framing as a useful resource both
for participants in and analysists of public scientific controversies. For them, Frames organize
central ideas, defining a controversy to resonate with core values and assumptions. Frames pare
down complex issues by giving some aspects greater emphasis. They allow citizens to rapidly identify
why an issue matters, who might be responsible, and what should be done. Matthew C. Nisbet &
Chris Mooney, Framing Science, Science, 316 (6 April 2007), p. 56. See also: Matthew C. Nisbet &
Dietram A. Scheufele, The Future of Public Engagement, The Scientist, 21, October 2007, pp. 39-
44. See also Nisbets blog: http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/

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First up, then, we turn to the highbrow world of philosophy. A little less than two years ago,
in the fall of 2012, the distinguished American philosopher Thomas Nagel published a book
called Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost
Certainly False. Developing themes in the philosophy of mind and ethics with which hed
long been associated (not least, through his influential 1974 essay, What is it like to be a
bat?), Nagel didnt exactly pull his punches. Heres how he began:

The aim of this book is to argue that the mind-body problem is not just a local
problem, having to do with the relation between mind, brain, and behavior in living
animal organisms, but that it invades our understanding of the entire cosmos and
history. The physical sciences and evolutionary biology cannot be kept insulated
from it and I believe that a true appreciation of the difficulty of the problem must
eventually change our conception of the place of the physical sciences in describing
the natural order. 2

Nagel continued, for the most part, in this vein. The world, he wrote a few pages later, is
an astonishing place, and the idea that we have in our possession the basic tools needed to
understand it is no more credible now than it was in Aristotles day.3 Powerful stuff!
In summary, the argument of Mind and Cosmos is as follows. First, modern western
science, based on the reductionist principles of the scientific revolution, cannot in principle
explain some elementary features of our world, including consciousness (in Nagels earlier
formulation: why is it like something to be some (conscious) thing?), cognition (how do we
come by reason?), and value (whence the good?). Second, notwithstanding this explanatory
weakness, the historical sciences have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that
conscious, rational, value-driven human beings are the products of natural evolutionary
processes. Reversing the inferential direction of the Darwinian notion of continuity between
nature and humankind, therefore, Nagel concludes that the very emergence of humankind
from within the world of living nature serves to demonstrate the inadequacy of our current

2 Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos. Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost
Certainly False, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 2012, p. 3. See also Nagel, What is it
like to be a bat?, Philosophical Review, 83, No. 4 (Oct., 1974), pp. 435-450.
3 Ibid, p. 7.

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philosophy of nature. Acknowledging that what is needed is a much more radical departure
from the familiar forms of naturalistic explanation than I am at present able to conceive, he
nonetheless looks to the possibility of some new form of natural teleology to do the job (but
not, let it be noted, based on the presumed existence of a god or gods; Nagel is an avowed
atheist).4
For the most part, Nagel conducts his argument in what might be termed the
conventional philosophical style: he characterizes and criticizes what he variously terms
scientific naturalism and reductive materialism, and tentatively even, as weve seen,
somewhat modestly explores the possible shape of a more acceptable alternative. From
time to time, however, he offers thoughts on why what is for him such a manifestly
unsatisfactory world picture as scientific naturalism has come to achieve its almost
complete dominance within the scientific community. Physico-chemical reductionism in
biology, he tells us early on, is the orthodox view, and any resistance to it is regarded as
not only scientifically but politically incorrect. A little later, he acknowledges that many
people will find his doubts about this orthodox view outrageous; but that, he adds, is
because almost everyone in our secular culture has been browbeaten into regarding the
reductive research program as sacrosanct, on the ground that anything else would not be
science. 5
An orthodox view? Political incorrectness? A sacrosanct research program? By
introducing these terms into his argument, Nagel is manifestly deploying the rhetoric of
(un)authorized belief. Interestingly enough, though, its not religiously motivated critics of
conventional science that hes implicitly accusing of establishing and trying to maintain a
doctrinaire orthodoxy (actually, Nagels references to such people in his book, and
particularly to advocates of so-called Intelligent Design, are extraordinarily generous);6
rather, the object of his implied criticism is the scientific community itself, or at least the
larger part of it, which he portrays as having far more at stake in debates about origins than
merely the quest for the best explanation of the observed phenomena. One reasonably
straightforward reading of Nagel at this point is that the main reason why the scientific

4 Ibid, pp. 124-127.
5 Ibid, pp. 5, 7; emphases added.
6 Alongside Young Earth Creationism (YEC), Intelligent Design (ID) is one of the two principal

movements of organized resistance to mainstream evolutionary biology in the U.S. today. The ID
movements origins are usually traced to the appearance of two works: Of Pandas and People: The
Central Question of Biological Origins, Haughton Publishing Company, Dallas, 1989; and Phillip E.
Johnson, Darwin on Trial, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Il., 1991.

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community has lined up overwhelmingly behind a wholly implausible form of reductionism
is because it wants to keep old-fashioned theism firmly at bay.7
What, then, was the critical reaction to these radical views? Upon publication, Mind
and Cosmos immediately attracted a great deal of academic and media attention. The book
was reviewed in all the best places, including the New York Times, the London Review of
Books and the New York Review of Books, as well as The Boston Review, The Nation, Prospect
Magazine, New Republic, The New Yorker, The Threepenny Review, and many others. It was
discussed on National Public Radio, and on scores of different blogs; and across all of these
media it quickly became apparent that Nagel had polarized critical opinion. Some reviewers
loved his radicalism, but others werent impressed. Many evolutionary biologists and
philosophers of biology, in particular, didnt care for the work at all, and they wrote about it
every bit as damningly as Nagel had written about what he took to be the orthodox view in
their respective fields. Tom Nagels antievolution book gets thrice pummeled, declared
evolutionary biologist and new atheist Jerry Coyne, on his blog Why Evolution is True,
before introducing several critical reviews. The best of..[them], he wrote, is by (ahem) my
first student Allen Orr, who, in the New York Review of Books, politely eviscerates Nagels
ideas. In similar vein, Harvard Universitys own Steven Pinker tweeted in something close
to exasperation: What has gotten into Thomas Nagel? Two philosophers expose the shoddy
reasoning of a once-great thinker.8

7 Thus Nagel: The priority given to evolutionary naturalism in the face of its implausible conclusions
about other subjects is due, I think, to the secular consensus that this is the only form of external
understanding of ourselves that provides an alternative to theism which is to be rejected as a mere
projection of our internal self-conception onto the universe, without evidence. Nagel, op.cit. (note
2), p. 29. Perhaps Nagel had in mind here a much quoted remark made by Harvard population
geneticist Richard Lewontin, in a review of a book by Carl Sagan: "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 counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the
uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could
believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities
of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.". See R. Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of
Demons," The New York Review of Books, 9th January 1997, p. 31.
8 H Allen Orr, Awaiting a New Darwin, New York Review of Books, 7th February 2013, accessed

on 1st April 2014, at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/feb/07/awaiting-new-

darwin/?pagination=false. See also: Steven Pinker, What has gotten into Thomas Nagel? Two

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 If scientists and philosophers generally took against Mind and Cosmos, however, the
same cannot be said of many other commentators and critics working outside the walls of
the academy. At the end of 2012, journalist Mark Vernon, writing in The Guardian
newspaper, chose Mind and Cosmos for the distinction of being, The Most Despised Science
Book of 2012; but the headline of his article indicated where his sympathies really lay: The
Most Despised Science Book of 2012 is worth reading, it said. Philosophers that break
scientistic taboos, such as Thomas Nagel with Mind and Cosmos, risk much, but we need
them. Despite the fact that Nagels gadfly had stung and whipped..[Coyne and Pinker]..
into a fury, Vernon wrote, the book is a model of carefulness, sobriety and reason. 9 More
extended tributes to Nagel appeared early in 2013 in the U.S. press. Writing in the right-
wing Weekly Standard in March 2013, for example, Senior Editor Andrew Ferguson
entertained himself and his readers by recounting in some detail the discomfort he believed
had been felt by participants in an interdisciplinary workshop on Moving Naturalism
Forward, that had taken place back in October 2012 at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge,
Massachusetts.10 For those of us who like to kill time sitting around pondering the nature
of realitypersonhood, God, moral judgment, free will, what have you, wrote Ferguson,
this was the Concert for Bangladesh. The workshop participants were united in their

philosophers expose the shoddy reasoning of a once-great thinker, at: http://bit.ly/SZCegd . The
two philosophers cited here are: Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg, Do You Only Have a Brain?
On Thomas Nagel, The Nation, 22nd October 2012; accessed on 1 April 2014 at:
http://www.thenation.com/article/170334/do-you-only-have-brain-thomas-nagel?page=full. For
more of the same, see: Elliott Sober, Remarkable Facts: Ending Science as We Know It, The
Boston Review, November 7th 2012; accessed on 1 April 2014 at:
http://www.bostonreview.net/books-ideas/remarkable-facts; and Michael Chorost, Where Thomas
Nagel Went Wrong, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 May 2013; accessed on 1 April 2014 at:
http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Thomas-Nagel-Went-Wrong/139129/.
9 Mark Vernon, The Most Despised Science Book of 2012 is worth reading, The Guardian,

Friday 4 January 2013; accessed on 1 April 2014 at:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2013/jan/04/most-despised-science-book-
2012
10 Organized by physicist Sean Carroll on behalf of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and

Astronomy and the Moore Center for Theoretical Cosmology and Physics, California Institute of
Technology, Moving Naturalism Forward: An Interdisciplinary Workshop took place on 25-29
October 2012. The list of participants in the workshop reads like a roll-call of prominent scientific
naturalists in contemporary Anglo-American science and philosophy: physicist Sean Carroll, biologist
Jerry Coyne, biologist Richard Dawkins, anthropologist Terrence Deacon, complex systems theorist
Simon DeBeo, philosopher Dan Dennett, philosopher Owen Flanagan, philosopher and novelist
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, physicist Janna Levin, philosopher Massimo Pugliucci, neuroscientist
David Poeppel, philosopher Alex Rosenberg, economist Don Ross, and physicist Steven Weinberg.
Videos of the full proceedings of the workshop are available online at:
http://preposterousuniverse.com/naturalism2012/.

6
adherence to a fully naturalistic view of the world, Ferguson told his readers. However, they
disagreed a little about whether this view should be taught and explained to the wider
public. Eminent philosopher Dan Dennett, for example, had argued that there was a certain
amount of risk involved: If we repeatedly tell folks that their sense of free will or belief in
objective morality is essentially an illusion, reported Ferguson, such knowledge has the
potential to undermine civilization itself, Dennett believes. He continued:

Civil order requires the general acceptance of personal responsibility, which is
closely linked to the notion of free will. Better, said Dennett, if the public were told
that for general purposes the self and free will and objective morality do indeed
existthat colors and sounds exist, toojust not in the way they think. They
exist in a special way, which is to say, ultimately, not at all.

On this point the discussion grew testy at times. I was reminded of the debate
among British censors over the publication of Lady Chatterleys Lover half a century
ago. Fine for you or me, one prosecutor is said to have remarked, but is this the
sort of thing you would leave lying about for your wife or servant to read?11

Clearly, Ferguson was beginning to enjoy himself. Apart from the problem of not frightening
the horses, he gave his readers the impression that there was little else to disturb the all-
pervading sense of unity in the Moving Naturalism Forward workshop. However, there
was, he said, a certain amount of vexation amongst the group about the persistence of
pockets of skepticism within the academy. How could even some among their most highly
respected colleagues fail to be persuaded by the overwhelming case for naturalism? Here I
quote at length, partly to give readers some sense of the power of irony in the hands of a
skillful journalist:

A video of the workshop shows Dennett complaining that a fewbut only a few!
contemporary philosophers have stubbornly refused to incorporate the naturalistic

11Andrew Ferguson, The Heretic: Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow
academics condemning him? Weekly Standard, 25th March 2013, 18, No. 27; accessed on 1st April
2014 at: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3.

7
 conclusions of science into their philosophizing, continuing to play around with
outmoded ideas like morality and sometimes even the soul.

I am just appalled to see how, in spite of what I think is the progress weve made in
the last 25 years, theres this sort of retrograde gang, he said, dropping his hands
on the table. Theyre going back to old-fashioned armchair philosophy with relish
and eagerness. Its sickening. And they lure in other people. And their work isnt
worth anythingits cute and its clever and its not worth a damn.

There was an air of amused exasperation. Will you name names? one of the
participants prodded, joking.

No names! Dennett said.

The philosopher Alex Rosenberg, author of The Atheists Guide, leaned forward,
unamused.

And then theres some work that is neither cute nor clever, he said. And its by
Tom Nagel.

There it was! Tom Nagel, whose Mind and Cosmos was already causing a
derangement among philosophers in England and America.

Dennett sighed at the mention of the name, more in sorrow than in anger. His
disgust seemed to drain from him, replaced by resignation. He looked at the table.
Yes, said Dennett, there is that.

Around the table, with the PowerPoint humming, they all seemed to heave a sad
sigha deep, workshop sigh.

Tom, oh Tom ... How did we lose Tom ...12

12 Ibid, note 11.

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What followed from here was a highly sympathetic account of Nagels argument in Mind and
Cosmos,. The details of this account need not detain us; what is directly relevant to our
theme, however, is the way in which the entire article chose to frame the debate about
Nagels work. As is often the way, the headline basically said it all: The Heretic: Who is
Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him?
Now sometimes, of course, sub-editors are wont to embarrass journalists with their
choice of headlines; but not, I fancy, in this case. For in the course of his article, Ferguson
happily endorsed the notion of Nagel as some sort of saintly rebel. Almost before the ink
was dry on Nagels book, he wrote, the UC Berkeley economist and prominent blogger
Brad DeLong could be found gathering the straw and wood for the ritual burning. And, as if
that wasnt bad enough, Ferguson confirmed that DeLongs readers gathered to jeer as the
faggots were placed around the stake. It was truly exhilarating, Ferguson told his readers,
that the real source of Nagels exasperation was his own tribe.13 Mind and Cosmos was, he
said, a work of philosophical populism, defending our everyday understanding from the
highly implausible world-view of a secular clerisy. Finally, as if to remove the last scintilla
of doubt about Nagels status as a martyr in the cause of opposing the secular priesthood of
American academia, Fergusons article was accompanied by a cartoon showing the
bespectacled heretic himself tied to a stake, with flames licking around him, and cowled
monks - presumably from the Monastery of the Holy Naturalist - gathered around, throwing
fuel on the fire. (This same cartoon was chosen as the cover illustration for the Weekly
Standard magazine for the week of 25th March 2013.)

13 By this point in the article, Ferguson had already informed his conservative readers that Nagel was
a fully signed-up member of the liberal intelligentsia. Nagel had, he said, given ample evidence of his
possession of a finely tuned sensus socialistis, having previously authored a book-length plea for the
confiscation of wealth and its radical redistribution a view that places him safely in the narrow strip
of respectable political opinion among successful American academics. Ibid. (note 11).

9


Figure 1

So far as I can tell, Nagel has been pretty restrained in response to all of the high profile
media attention and criticism, confining himself for the most part to a clarifying article in
the New York Times that stays firmly on the rhetorical ground of philosophical prcis and
exposition.14 Whats striking, however, is the extent to which his intervention in the
continuing scientific and public debate about organic origins has discomfited the
community of evolutionary naturalists and their philosophical allies. For the most part, this
community has confined itself to firm but reasonably polite rebuttals, together with
occasional expressions of regret that Nagel, for all his avowed atheism, should have chosen
to give quite so much aid and comfort to evolutionary biologys real enemies, the
creationists. However, in the relative restraint of the naturalists objections (at least in
public), one detects more than a little anxiety, not just about what creationists might make
of Nagels critique (the answer, by the way, is: quite a lot15), but also about the risk amply

14 Thomas Nagel, The Core of Mind and Cosmos, New York Times Opinionator, 13th August
2013; accessible online at: http://people.rit.edu/wlrgsh/Nagel2.pdf
15 The ID community, in particular, has leapt at Nagels support for the legitimacy of their critique of

Darwinism. Thus, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow John West authored a review of Nagels
bombshell book in the Institutes online ideas and information exchange, Evolution News and Views.

10
demonstrated by the way in which many media commentators and critics chose to frame
the debate - that they themselves, the naturalists, should somehow appear to be closed-
minded zealots, much like the creationist fundamentalists whose influence in the public
square they so squarely opposed.

_ _ _ _ _

The second episode I wish to consider concerns this world of creationist fundamentalism.
My starting-point is in a superficially surprising place, namely some of the recent activities
of one of this countrys most successful science popularizers. William Bill Sanford Nye is a
well-known science educator, comedian, and TV personality. Best known for his long-
running TV show, Bill Nye the Science Guy (which ran from 1993-1998), hes a colorful
character who regularly hosts science-related TV shows and produces educational
materials on everything from planetary science to psychology. With his goofy looks and
trademark bow tie, hes an all-purpose enthusiast for things scientific and technological,
whos won numerous Emmy awards for his work. He makes home demos, pop quizzes and
printable guides for kids and teachers, and hes available to make appearances in
educational, media and corporate events; his website tells us that those wanting to book an
appearance should contact his agent in New York.16
For some weeks now, anyone clicking on the link to Bill Nye the Science Guys
website has been greeted by a special page featuring a countdown clock that reads,
Welcome to debatelive.org : 10 minutes 39.30 seconds : Until debate begins at the Creation
Museum.17 The debate in question was a much discussed live exchange that took place
between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, the President/Founder of the leading Young-Earth-
Creationist (YEC) organization Answers in Genesis (AIG), in Hams Creation Museum in

Noting Nagels favorable citation of no less than three Discovery Institute Fellows, he counseled his
ID colleagues to get hold a copy of Mind and Cosmos as quickly as possible: Get ready for the book
burning parties by defenders of Darwinian orthodoxy. I wouldn't even be surprised if there is an
effort to convince Oxford University Press to disown Nagel's book. So you might want to get the
book while you can. John G. West, Noted Atheist Philosopher Thomas Nagel: Defenders of
Intelligent Design Deserve Our Gratitude, Evolution News and Views, August 22, 2012; accessed
on 3 April 2014 at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/noted_atheist_p063451.html. Note
that the last sentence of the above quote was a handy link to Mind and Cosmos on Amazon.com; for
Wests ID readers, a copy of Nagels book was just a few clicks away.
16 http://www.billnye.com/.
17 http://www.billnye.com/. See also the same video content, available on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI

11
Petersburg Kentucky on 4th February 2014. Prior to this date, the debatelive.com site
(which is operated by AIG) functioned to promote the event; subsequently, it has carried a
recording of the entire proceedings for anyone who cares to view it online and doesnt wish
to spend $19.99 on a DVD or a downloadable version, both of which are also available from
AIG.18 As of 12 Noon on Saturday 5th April 2014, the 2 hour 45 minute YouTube video had
been accessed 2,717,985 times.
From the moment that the Creation Museum announced the Nye/Ham debate,
around the question: Is creation a viable model of origins in todays modern scientific era?,
this was a high profile, highly polarizing event.19 For their parts, both AIG and YEC-friendly
media outlets across the country made a huge deal of it. Yes, the Debate with Bill Nye Is
On, announced Ken Ham in his online Answers Outreach column on 2nd January. That same
day, the main AIG website carried the official announcement as its headline story (together
with the information that this announcement had been adapted and distributed as a news
release today to the national media), concluding rather wistfully that, evolution/creation
debates featuring serious debaters have sadly become rare. 20 A few days later, the
evangelical Christian News heralded what they called The Debate of the Decade.
The highly-anticipated debate next month between creationist Ken Ham and evolutionist
Bill Nye, crowed reporter Garrett Haley, has generated so much interest that tickets for
the event sold out in two minutes.21
In secular and scientific circles, however, the response to news of the debate was
much more mixed. Some observers welcomed the fact that a science communicator as
seasoned as Bill Nye was taking on one of the leaders of YEC and in his own front parlor,
too; but others were not so sure. A full month before the debate, none other than

18 http://www.answersingenesis.org/store/product/uncensored-bill-nye-debates-ken-ham/?sku=30-
9-472&
19 The debate took place as a result of an invitation issued to Bill Nye by Ken Ham, in response to an

interview Nye gave about creationism in August 2012, in which he argued for the importance of not
allowing the nations children to be indoctrinated with creationist ideas. See: Bill Nye: Creationism
Is Not Appropriate For Children, http://people.rit.edu/wlrgsh/Nagel2.pdf
20 Yes, the Debate with Bill Nye Is On, Around the World with Ken Ham, Answers Outreach, 2nd

January 2014, accessed on 30th March 2014, at: http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-

ham/2014/01/02/yes-the-debate-with-bill-nye-is-on/ Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham Debate at the Creation
Museum, Answers in Genesis, 2nd January 2014, accessed on 30th March 2014, at:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2014/01/02/bill-nye-ken-ham-debate
21 Garrett Haley, Debate of the Decade: Enormous Interest for Upcoming Creation/Evolution

Debate with Ken Ham, Bill Nye, Christian News, January 11, 2014; archived at:
http://christiannews.net/2014/01/11/debate-of-the-decade-enormous-interest-for-upcoming-
creationevolution-debate-with-ken-ham-and-bill-nye/

12
evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne listed his worries about the debate on his blog site Why
Evolution is True: First, he wrote, Nye is likely helping fund the Creation Museum.
Second, Nye is giving special credibility to Ham. My third worry is this will look great on
Hams c.v., but not so much on Nyes. Finally, does Nye have experience in debating
creationists?22 Opting for what might be regarded as a more balanced perspective on this
issue, the American Humanist Association published two contrasting perspectives on the
wisdom of the debate, one endorsing and the other condemning Nyes decision to enter the
fray.23
In the event, the Nye/Ham debate was a perfectly civil though strangely stilted
affair, each man making carefully pre-prepared (and timed) contributions with the help of
Powerpoint slides, and neither appearing to pay very much attention to what the other had
to say. Strikingly, both men avoided ad hominem arguments; and in a certain sense both
appeared to agree about the fundamental cause of their disagreement. On several occasions,
Nye told the audience that they were being asked to choose between everything that science
had to say about origins and the contents of (the English translation of) a book; and on at
least as many occasions, Ham essentially said the same thing. Indeed, following an
intervention by Nye on some of the scientific uncertainties within contemporary cosmology,
Ham came to the microphone with the intentionally ironic remark, Bill, I want to tell you,
there is a book that tells where atoms come from, and it starts out, In the beginning .... One
can argue about the effectiveness of Hams arguments in the debate (needless to say,
opinions were divided on the subject; but many commentators judged that the honors went
to Nye), as well as about his characterization of various scientific issues in the debate; but
its difficult, I think, to question Hams basic honesty and openness concerning the religious
nature of his position.24

22 http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/this-may-not-end-well/. Coynes
reference to CVs here is a direct crib from a yet more distinguished scientist, former President of
Royal Society Lord May, who has been widely cited as having replied to a creationist who invited him
to debate, That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine. Richard Dawkins told this
story in response to an audience question about why he had decided to stop debating creationists; see
the video under Q10: Why Dawkins Wont Debate Creationists, available at:
http://fora.tv/2009/10/07/Richard_Dawkins_The_Greatest_Show_on_Earth
23 See articles by Brian Magee, http://americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2014-01-bill-nye-sharing-

the-stage-with-ken-ham-is-a-mistake; and Maggie Ardiente,

http://americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2014-01-why-the-bill-nye-ken-ham-debate-is-a-good-
thing
24 One of the more interesting assessments of who won and lost the debate is provided by the

evangelical outlet Christian Today, according to which 92% of several thousand online voters on its

13
 All this being so, one might imagine that Bill Nye would have been tempted to
deploy the rhetoric of (un)authorized belief - the tropes of orthodoxy and unorthodoxy,
and all the rest - in the debate; but interestingly, this didnt happen. On the contrary, in the
course of the debate Bill Nye went out of his way to emphasize that he wasnt attacking
religion per se. I just want to remind us all, he said, there are billions of people in the
world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by
[sic] their religion. But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the
Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old. No, in the course of the debate it was not the
evolutionist Bill Nye but rather the creationist Ken Ham who more often invoked the
rhetorical tropes of (un)authorized belief. In his opening remarks, Ham quoted the Richard
Dawkins Foundations counsel against what Nye was doing: Scientists should not debate
creationists. Period.. Then he continued: Right here I believe theres a gross
misrepresentation in our culture. Were seeing people being indoctrinated to believe that
creationists cant be scientists; I believe its all a part of secularists high-jacking the word
science. A few moments later still in the course of his introductory remarks Ham
projected the following statement onto the big screen in the debate chamber: the word
SCIENCE has been hi-jacked by secularists in teaching evolution to force the religion of
naturalism on generations of kids.

website expressed the opinion that Nye had won. Accessed on 30th March 2014 at:
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/bill.nye.vs.ken.ham.debate.live.stream.free.watch.online.creat
ion.vs.evolution.debate.here.start.time/35688.htm. Hams openness about the religious basis of his
views stands in stark contrast to that of some other contemporary opponents of evolutionary
biology, not least many of those associated with the ID movement. This is revealed by even a cursory
comparison between the public statements of AIG and those of the leading ID organization, The
Discovery Institute; see: http://www.discovery.org/csc/, as well as by the fact that AIG and the
Discovery Institute are regularly critical of each others very different approaches to combating
evolutionary naturalism. These differences do not, however, prevent both groups from employing
the rhetoric of (un)authorized belief in their critiques of evolutionary biology.

14


Figure 2

Here, then, we see the creationist side of the house employing rhetorical tropes drawn from
the history of religious conflict in order to characterize their opponents position. And this,
by the way, is not at all unusual. Scattered richly throughout the voluminous outpourings of
AIG which, let it be noted, began life principally as a publishing house there are routine
references to the allegedly doctrinaire, sectarian and religious character of the scientific
positions that AIG was set up to oppose.25 To take just one example, back in 2008 Ken Ham
pledged AIGs support to Ben Stein, the host of the (then) newly released and highly
inflammatory documentary film: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. According to AIG staff
member Mark Looy, after previewing Steins film, Ken declared that the film was riveting,
eye-opening, even astonishing. Ben does a masterful job of exposing the ruthlessness of

25On a visit to the Creation Museum with a small group of MIT undergraduates in 2008, I was struck
both by the sheer size of the Museums bookstore (which easily rivals in scale what might be found
in one of the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC, or one of the national museums in London),
and by the sight given us by Ken Ham, on a short behind-the-scenes tour of the museum of an
enormous warehouse attached to the museum, full of books and magazines awaiting distribution.
The size of this warehouse may be judged from the fact that Ham told us of plans to move the
stored books offsite so that the space could be converted into a large auditorium. Legacy Hall was
duly constructed; it seats 800, and it is the place where the Nye/Ham debate took place.

15
evolutionists who will go after anyone who challenges or merely questions Darwinian
orthodoxy [emphasis added].26
Released in February 2008, Steins pro-ID documentary was couched almost
entirely in the language of (un)authorized belief. From the outset, Stein embraced an openly
conspiratorial interpretation of the debate about the teaching of evolution in public schools
and colleges, arguing over and again that Darwinism was being maintained as the dominant
ideology in the American educational system by active intellectual, cultural, institutional,
and, ultimately, political suppression of any and all alternatives. Speaking on a public
platform during the published preview of the movie, Stein asserted that, Scientists are not
allowed to even think thoughts than involve an intelligent creator.27 Excitedly heralding the
movie on Evolution News and Views in the summer of 2007, Discovery Institute staff
member Robert Crowther announced that, New Ben Stein Flick, Expelled, Blows the
Whistle on the Darwinist Inquisition. Among many charges leveled at the Darwinian
establishment by Crowther was the following:

Darwinists at George Mason University, Ohio State, Baylor, SMU, University of Idaho,
the Smithsonian Institution and a number of other universities and research centers
have been hunting down and trying to disgrace and intimidate scientists and
educators for daring to defy the Darwinian orthodoxy.28

So here we have it again: Darwinian orthodoxy. This and similar phrases have a long
history of usage by anti-evolutionists over the course of more than a century of cultural
conflict around scientific theories of origins. If there were time and space, we could trace
the multiple uses of these terms: in late-Victorian opposition to Darwinism; in the rise of
fundamentalist antipathy to evolution and evolutionary ideology in the U.S. in the period
around the First World War; in the simmering hostility among many evangelical Protestants
toward the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis after the Second World War; in the steady rise,

26 Mark Looy, A Meeting of Minds. Ein Stein + one Ham = a dynamic duo of Darwin-debunkers,
March 13, 2008, Answers in Genesis website (archived); accessed on 30th March 2014, at:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/03/13/meeting-of-minds
27 Ben Steins Expelled, movie preview published by Expelledthemove.com, and available on

YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxGyMn_-J3c

28 Robert Crowther, New Ben Stein Flick, Expelled, Blows the Whistle on the Darwinist

Inquisition, Evolution News and Views, August 23, 2007. Accessed on 3rd April 2014 at:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/08/new_ben_stein_flick_expelled_b004141.html

16
through the Sixties and Seventies, of what came to be called scientific creationism; in the
emergence, following the Supreme Court ruling against scientific creationism in 1987, of a
new school of ID; and, finally, in the complex of events that led to the rehabilitation (to a
degree) and the internationalization of YEC after 2000. Throughout this long history of anti-
Darwinian efforts, one theme recurs like a drumbeat: evolution in general, and Darwinism
in particular, are what the Victoria Institute in London, as far back as the 1860s, termed
Science falsely so-called; that is to say, they are a kind of sectarian anti-religion seeking to
pass itself off as regular science.29
There are many more and less obvious reasons why the charge that evolution is a
form of covert religion is attractive to the contemporary YEC community. Briefly, among
other things, this charge enables YEC advocates: (i) to allege (philosophical/religious) bias
among evolutionists in their assessment of evidence regarding origins; (ii) to assert the
existence of various kinds of embedded (e.g., institutional) prejudice against alternative
(heretical) views within the scientific community; (iii) to avoid apparently fatal empirical
objections to YEC, on the grounds that philosophical presuppositions rather than empirical
evidence are the decisive factors in the debate; (iv) to establish some kind of
epistemological and/or political equality between the (philosophical/religious) positions of
evolution and YEC; and (v) to contest what have been repeated and, from a YEC
perspective, highly restrictive legal prohibitions on the teaching of YEC as a legitimate
scientific alternative to evolution in American public school and college science classes.30
Clearly, any line of argument that lends itself to quite so many related but different
rhetorical purposes (of course, the list is not exhaustive) is likely to be perennially popular.

_ _ _ _ _

29 The Victoria Institute was founded in 1865, in response to the publication of the Origin of Species
(1859) and Essays and Reviews (1860), to defend "the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture ... against
the opposition of Science falsely so called."
30 This last point refers to the multiple attempts made by YECs in the 1970s and 1980s to establish a

presence in public school and college science curricula, for example through the passage of so-called
equal time or balanced treatment laws at the state level. Such laws were contested first, in Little
Rock, Arkansas in 1981, and subsequently through multiple appeals culminating in a Supreme Court
ruling of 1987 that invoked the First Amendment principle of the separation of church and state as a
basis for excluding YEC from public school and college science curricula. For details of this
important story, see: Dorothy Nelkin, The Creation Controversy: Science or Scripture in the Schools,
W W Norton, New York, 1982; Edward J Larson, Trial and Error: The American Controversy over
Creation and Evolution, Oxford University Press, New York, 1985; and Ronald L Numbers, The
Creationists. From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge MA & London, 2006.

17

What can be learnt from these two recent episodes drawn from the wider ongoing
public debates about evolution in American culture? First, its clear that what Ive termed
the language of (un)authorized belief is alive and well in these debates. Linguistic tropes
that derive ultimately from the history of (western) religious conflict continue to be widely
employed in arguments between evolutionary biologists and their critics, as well as (one
might say, especially) in mass media coverage of and commentary upon these arguments. A
second obvious point is that a principal use of the language of (un)authorized belief in these
contexts is as a rhetorical stick with which to beat conventional or mainstream evolutionary
biology. Here, through an ironic inversion of the original trope (which of course generally
attributed orthodoxy to various forms of strict religious adherence), mainstream secular
science is cast in the role of the culturally and institutionally dominant player, over against
its weaker secular and religious rivals. On this reading, the language of (un)authorized
belief is used to frame the debate in such a way as to suggest that it is mainstream sciences
cultural and institutional power, rather than the merits of any particular scientific
arguments and/or evidence, that enables it to maintain its dominant position.31 In extreme
cases (for example, Ben Steins movie Expelled) the use of the language of (un)authorized
belief serves the interests of full-blown conspiracy theory, in which it is claimed that
academic publications are being suppressed, researchers are being threatened with loss of
reputation, advancement, or even their jobs, school teachers are being actively gagged, and
so on.
Another point that emerges from comparison of these two episodes is that the
language of (un)authorized belief serves a range of related but different uses for different
actors in the evolutionary debates. On the religiously conservative side of the debates,
secular evolutionary biologists find themselves repeatedly accused of cloaking what are
ultimately religious (or at any rate, metaphysical) commitments in the guise of pure science.
In this context, framing the debate in terms of (un)authorized belief is often linked with
criticisms of evolutionary biology as somehow falling short of the standards of true science.
Historians George Marsden and Ron Numbers have noted the extent to which particular
stereotypes of the nature of science came to characterize various forms of fundamental anti-

31 Im using the notion of framing here in the sense suggested by Nisbet and Mooney (see note 1).

18
evolutionism in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.32 Though the favored stereotypes
have changed somewhat, inductivist and anti-theoretical tendencies have persisted in many
creationist writings up to the present; and these frequently inform their critiques of
mainstream evolutionary biology. In his debate with Bill Nye, for example, Ken Ham made
much of the supposed distinction between observational science and historical science.
His point was that observational science is capable of establishing reliable facts, on which
all can supposedly agree, whereas historical science is not. Awkwardly, at some points in
the debate Ham seemed to be denying the possibility of historical science, while at others he
seemed to be trying to do it; nonetheless, the main rhetorical thrust of his argument was
reasonably clear: despite all protestations to the contrary, evolutionary biology is
necessarily and unavoidably mired in secularist (anti-) religious assumptions, and therefore
its true character is (anti-)religious rather than scientific. It is essentially this same
argument, albeit in a far more sophisticated form, that constitutes the heart of University of
California, Berkeley lawyer Phillip E. Johnsons influential book, Darwin on Trial, which
arguably launched the modern ID movement.33
So far, so good; but all of this scarcely helps to explain why Tom Nagel, whose views
are very far from being religiously conservative, should also be drawn to the language of
(un)authorized belief. In Nagels case, however, such language serves a different, though
complementary rhetorical purpose. In the main, Nagel does not use the language of
Darwinian orthodoxy in order to point to illicit secularist assumptions in the thinking of
his scientific and philosophical colleagues (this is hardly surprising, since he appears to
share many, if not perhaps all, of these assumptions). Rather, Nagel uses this language in
order to suggest that his secular colleagues are at risk of ignoring major flaws in their own
theories of organic and human origins because they are excessively preoccupied with staving
off other kinds of threat to their work: not threats of conceptual incoherence and theoretical
inadequacy (which are Nagels main concerns), but rather threats of the re-introduction of
various kinds of overtly or covertly religious (theistic) ideas into the domain of secular
scientific knowledge.34

32 For the influence of both the Baconian and the Scottish Common Sense philosophies on turn of
the 20th century American fundamentalism and anti-evolutionism, see: Numbers, op. cit. (note 28),
and George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century
Evangelicalism, 1870-1925, Oxford University Press, New York, 1980.
33 Johnson, op. cit., note 6.
34 Even this does not exhaust the rhetorical uses of the language of (un)authorized belief. For as we

saw, by taking Nagels part in the popular press, some commentators and critics have been able to

19
 From a combination of both of these episodes, then, we see clearly that mainstream
evolutionary biology is continuing to experience a considerable amount of what might be
termed cultural pressure; that is to say, it continues to be the object of critiques some
individual, some collective and, as in the case of YEC, relatively highly organized; some from
within elite academic culture, some from more populist sources largely outside of that
culture; some from the radical left, some from the radical right - that openly challenge the
authority of Darwinian orthodoxy. Fundamentally, the challenge here is to the intellectual,
scientific, and cultural authority of mainstream evolutionary biology to adjudicate on some
of the larger questions that arise in scientific studies of organic origins: on the question, for
example, of the origin of life; on the question of the origin of new adaptive complexity
(design); on the question of the origin of consciousness; and above all, perhaps, on the
question of how we are to properly understand the inter-relationships between nature,
human nature and human culture. The language of (un)authorized belief, bringing with it, as
it does, multiple resonances from the long history of western religious conflicts, lends itself
particularly well to the purposes of such critique; and this, in the end, is why it is so
regularly invoked.
In this context, it cannot be regarded as merely coincidental that in recent years
weve also been witnessing a period of renewed cultural assertiveness on the part of
evolutionary biology in general, and evolutionary naturalism in particular. At no time since
the mid-Victorian period have prominent advocates of the Darwinian theory of evolution by
natural selection been so bold in their claims about what this theory can properly
accomplish as theyve been over the past generation. Whether it be in the rise of
evolutionary psychology, with its hopes for a Darwinian account of human nature, or in the
emergence of the so-called new atheism, with its claims for what Richard Dawkins once
famously described as intellectual fulfillment, significant numbers of Darwinian biologists
and apologists for Darwinian biology have been on the offensive for some time now, on
behalf of a more militant evolutionary naturalism.35 (Notice, once again, how the language of
(un)authorized belief springs almost unbidden into view!)

use this language to pursue their own larger agendas for example, the critique of what they take to
be a culturally and politically oppressive liberal and secular intelligentsia within American academia.
35 The allusion here is to Dawkins oft-quoted comment that, "Although atheism might have been

logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist; See
Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, W. W. Norton, New York, 1986, p. 6. More recently and even
more famously, of course, Dawkins has extended this claim at book length in his bestselling book,
The God Delusion, Bantam, New York, 2006.

20
 There is no doubt that these and other more culturally assertive forms of
Darwinism are closely indeed, reciprocally - related with the various critiques of
Darwinian naturalism that this paper has been concerned to explore. If this were not so,
then it would not have been possible for the Weekly Standard to entertain its readers for
quite so it long with its account of the alleged discomfort felt by the participants in the
Moving Naturalism Forward workshop, in face of their rejection by Tom Nagel; and neither
would it have been possible for AIG to obtain such mileage from the agreement of a
successful science communicator (no evolutionary biologist, he) to debate in public with
Ken Ham the question, Is creation a viable model of origins in todays modern scientific
era?
The analysis presented here suggests that mainstream evolutionary biology today
experiences considerable tensions resulting from two simultaneous needs: first, the need to
present a coherent and united front against external opponents, both secular and religious;
and second, the need not to appear unduly controlling and doctrinaire. This is the larger
agonistic field within which evolutionary biology has been practiced in the U.S. over the
course of the last generation at least. The influence of this agonistic field on the shape and
character of the professional work of evolutionary biologists is just beginning to be
addressed by STS scholars. For example, Myrna Perez Sheldon has explored the impact of
the creation controversies on professional evolutionary debates in her work centered on
the career of the late Stephen Jay Gould. Gould is a multiply complex character in this
context, having been simultaneously an evolutionary biologist, an historian of evolutionary
biology, and a visible scientist who at the peak of his influence was close to being the
leading public representative of evolutionary biology in the U.S. In a fascinating recent
paper, Myrna has shown that the professional reception accorded, for example, to Goulds
work on the tempo and mode of evolution can best be understood in the larger context of
the creation controversies, in the course of which several leading biologists actively
competed for the right to claim for themselves the mantle of being the authentic
representatives of both Darwin and Darwinism in late-20th century America.36
This is not the place to pursue further the impact of what Ive termed the large
agonistic field on professional evolutionary biology. In this paper, Ive been concerned to

36 Sheldon, Myrna Perez, Claiming Darwin: Stephen Jay Gould in Contests over Evolutionary
Orthodoxy and Public Perception, 19772002. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies
in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 45 (March 2014), pp. 13947.

21
explore some of the varied rhetorical purposes that continue to be served by invoking the
freighted language of (un)authorized belief in public debates about evolution in
contemporary America. In closing, it seems important to note that these debates show no
sign of getting resolved any time soon. Philosophers are no closer to consensus on the
merits of scientific naturalism now than they were in mid-Victorian times; biologists,
anthropologists and psychologists continue to disagree around theories of the evolution,
not only of the human species but of consciousness, language, culture, and even religion;
and in the meantime, organized skepticism about the larger claims of Darwinian enthusiasts
continues to gather renewed energy from all of the above.
Ahead of their public debate earlier this year, Jerry Coyne worried that Bill Nyes
decision to flatter Ken Ham by agreeing to go toe-to-toe with him before a live audience in
Petersburg, Kentucky would likely help fill the coffers of the Creation Museum. In the event,
his words proved to be prophetic. Going into the Nye/Ham debate, AIG had been in a hold
pattern for some years on its plans to build a second major creationist visitor attraction in
Kentucky. The word was that fund raising had proven more difficult than expected, and a
bond offering had not lived up to expectations. On 27th February 2014, however, just a little
more than three weeks after his debate with Bill Nye, Ken Ham returned to the Legacy
Auditorium in his Creation Museum to announce that Ark Encounter, a supposedly 1:1
scale model of Noahs famous life-preserving vessel, would now move forward, and that
work would soon start on site. The funding is in place for phase 1 to begin on the Ark
Encounter project, said Ham. In a statement simultaneously placed in the AIG website and
released, once again slightly adapted, to national media, AIG stated:

Under Hams direction, a full-scale 510-foot-long Noahs Ark will be built as the
featured attraction at the Ark Encounter. Research indicates that the Ark, located
south of Cincinnati in Grant County, Kentucky will draw up to 2 million people in its
first year.

We praise our Creator God for His blessings and for the incredible support we just
witnessed from our generous supporters around the country, declared Ham. Yes,
there have been days of nervous anticipation. Many challenges and road blocks
came up as we worked through the stages of the bond offering leading up to the final
bond delivery. From atheists registering for the bond offering and attempting to

22
 disrupt it, to secular bloggers and some reporters writing misleading and inaccurate
articles about the bondsthe obstacles were numerous and disruptive..

The recent global media coverage of the Ark project and the soon-to-be-released
film Noah starring Russell Crowe, plus Hams well-publicized February 4 debate
with Bill Nye The Science Guy (over 7 million people watched live), have all helped
bring the Ark Encounter to the worlds attention. Accordingly, Ham noted another
aspect of Gods providence in the Ark project: The date of my debate with Bill Nye
had been on our calendar several months before we knew the final delivery date of
the Ark bonds. But in Gods timing, not oursand although the bond registration
had already closed before February 4 and no more bonds could be purchased the
high-profile debate prompted some people who had registered for the bonds to
make sure they followed through with submitting the necessary and sometimes
complicated paperwork.37

Watch this space.

37 Bond Offering Succeeds for Full-Size Ark. Ark Encounter moves forward; groundbreaking in
sight, Answers in Genesis website, February 27, 2014; accessed on 5th April 2014 at:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/ark/ark-bond-offering-succeeds

23