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 God and Man
at Cornell
Rawlings Assails Intelligent Design
By Jim Roberts
 Last October, Interim President Hunter
Rawlings surprised a Trustee/Council
Weekend audience in Statler Auditorium
with a bold State of the University address on a
controversial issue. Abandoning the typical pronouncements
about university initiatives and
accomplishments that characterize such
speeches, Rawlings took aim at "the challenge to
science posed by religiously based opposition to evolution,
described, in its current form, as 'intelligent design.' "
By doing so, Rawlings drew national attention to Cornell:
the speech was covered by many major media outlets, including the New
York Times, and triggered an outburst of commentary, pro and con, on Internet
blogs.He also linked himself to the great, if somewhat diminished, American
tradition of college presidents acting as public intellectuals, using their
positions
as platforms for influencing public opinion and national policy. One of
the exemplars
of this tradition was Andrew Dickson White, Cornell's co-founder and
first
president, and Rawlings's attack on intelligent design (I.D.) drew him
into a longrunning
controversy that was also of central importance to White.
In 1896, eleven years after he stepped down as president of Cornell,White
published a two-volume work titled A History of the Warfare of Science
with
Theology in Christendom. He wrote it,White explained in the introduction, "to
aid in letting the light of historical truth into that decaying mass of
outworn
thought which attaches the modern world to medieval conceptions of Christianity,
and which still lingers among us--a most serious barrier to religion
and
morals, and a menace to the whole normal evolution of society."
White was gravely concerned by theological attacks upon science, something
he saw as not only detrimental to the advancement of
knowledge but damaging to religion. But even as he
defended science,White made it clear that he was a man
of faith, noting that he had "been bred a churchman" and
that "my most cherished friendships [are] among deeply
religious men and women." Nonetheless,White noted, he
and Ezra Cornell had been bitterly attacked for founding
a nonsectarian university. Their determination to keep
Cornell free from domination by any religious sect was
attacked by clergymen and academics alike as godlessness,
and they were accused,White said, of "preaching Darwinism
and atheism."
 White fought back, first in an 1875 lecture at the
Cooper Union in New York City and then in a series of
articles that evolved into his two-volume work. "My conviction
is that Science,"White concluded, "though it has
evidently conquered Dogmatic Theory based on biblical
texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand
with Religion; and that, although theological control will
continue to diminish, Religion, as seen in the recognition
of 'a Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for
righteousness,' and in the love of God and of our neighbor,
will steadily grow stronger and stronger, not only in the
American institutions of learning but in the world at large."
White's belief that science had "evidently conquered Dogmatic
Theory based on biblical texts"
was overly optimistic. The struggle between evolution and creationism continues
to this day, occasionally
exploding into the headlines via such events as the Scopes "monkey trial" of
1925, the 1987
Supreme Court ruling in Edwards v. Aguillard, and the recent school board
battles over the teaching
of I.D. in Pennsylvania and Kansas.
 Rawlings chose to wade into this fight, he explained after the speech, for
two reasons:
"One is a growing concern I have with what I call the abuse of religion--that
is, the
use of religion for political, social, and educational purposes. It seems
to me that's
very dangerous to religion itself. As James Madison pointed out, it's
a perversion of
the means of salvation. Secondly, I have a kind of historical interest
in this through
my Madison work--it's more to me than just a current topic. It's
a recurring theme
in American history, and I think it's an important one that needs addressing."
Rawlings says the development of his ideas on the subject was
driven by discussions with Cornell faculty. "Over a period of several
months," he explains, "I talked with a fair number--not only
biologists,
interestingly enough, but physicists. In fact, I would say the
tipping point came when I talked about this with a couple of
physicists--Saul Teukolsky and Kurt Gottfried." Teukolsky says
that the subject came up at the end of a meeting on another matter.
"The conversation turned to the anti-science movement in
the country, and what the University should do about it," he
recalls. "The talk was not just about evolution, but more generally
the betrayal of the principles of the Enlightenment on
which the country and the University had been founded."
Rawlings, Gottfried adds, "had a very prepared mind for this
issue."
Rawlings's inclination to speak out on I.D. was further
strengthened after he participated in a Constitution Day program
with Isaac Kramnick, the Schwartz Professor of Government. In his remarks
at
the September event, Rawlings talked about James Madison's belief in
the importance of the
separation of church and state and decried the current movement to "blur
the line" between the two.
He quoted Pascal, who wrote in his Pensées that "men never do
evil so completely and cheerfully as
when they do it from religious conviction"--a thought he repeated
in his State of the University
address.
Excerpts from the State of the University Address delivered
by
Interim President Hunter Rawlings on October 21, 2005
I want to address a matter of great significance to Cornell and to the
country as a whole, a matter with fundamental educational, intellectual,
and political implications. . . . The issue in question is the challenge
to
science posed by religiously based opposition to evolution, described,
in its current form, as "intelligent design." This controversy
raises profound
questions about the nature of public discourse and what we teach in universities,
and it has a profound effect on public policy. . . .
Disputes involving evolution are brewing in at least twenty states and
numerous school districts. And in August President Bush weighed in by suggesting
that schools should teach intelligent design along with evolution. "I
think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of
thought," the president told reporters. "You're asking me
whether or not people
ought to be exposed to different ideas. The answer is yes."
Most of us have some familiarity with "creationism," which asserts
that
life as we know it was created more or less in its present form about 10,000
years ago. Intelligent design is a more subtle construct. While not necessarily
denying that some forms of life have evolved over time, it contends that
some
features of the natural world (the flagella of bacteria is one often-cited
example)
are so "irreducibly complex" that they require an intelligent
designer. . . .
Many Americans, including some supporters of evolution, believe that
intelligent design should be taught along with evolution. "Teach the
controversy"
has become the rallying cry of the I.D. camp, and it is the view apparently
endorsed by President Bush. In fact, according to a recent report by the
Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., which analyzed twenty years of
trend
data on public attitudes toward evolution, a large minority of Americans--
around 40 percent--says that creationism should be taught instead of
evolution
in public schools. . . .
I want to suggest that universities like Cornell can make a valuable contribution
to the nation's cultural and intellectual discourse. With a breadth
of
expertise that embraces the humanities and the social sciences as well
as science
and technology, we need to be engaging issues like evolution and intelligent
design both internally, in the classroom, in the residential houses, and
in campus-wide debates, and also externally by making our voices heard
in the
spheres of public policy and politics. . . .
In keeping with the convictions of A. D. White and Ezra Cornell, Cornell
has
remained a nonsectarian university that actively supports students in the
practice
of their religious faiths. Cornell United Religious Work (CURW), established
in 1929, was created in order to give Cornell students an array of religious
options. CURW now hosts twenty-six affiliate groups . . . [and] Anabel
Taylor
Hall provides a physical home to a wide range of student organizations
and
programs that are religiously based. . . .
So if religious beliefs of all sorts are welcomed, encouraged, and supported
at Cornell and if religious studies has a secure place within the curriculum,
should creationism or intelligent design be taught in science courses?
A substantial
fraction of the American people and of our own students accept creationism
or intelligent design, so what is the harm?
The answer is that intelligent design is not valid as science--that is,
it has
no ability to develop new knowledge through hypothesis testing, modification
of the original theory based on experimental results, and renewed testing
through more refined experiments that yield still more refinements and
insights. . . . We should not suspend, or rather annul, the rules of science
in
order to allow any idea into American education. I.D. is a subjective concept.
It is, at its core, a religious belief.
What about including I.D. in public policy discourse? After all, it is
an important
view of the world shared by many Americans. Many religiously based views
enter the public arena and inform our policy debates, and they should. Religiously
derived arguments, in my view, must bear two burdens: they must be
clearly identified as such, that is, as propositions of faith; and, in
acknowledging
that others do not share these propositions of faith, they must be supported
by other arguments. . . .
I am convinced that the political movement seeking to inject religion into
state
policy and our schools is serious enough to require our collective time
and
attention. . . . We have at Cornell great intellectual resources to deal
with the
current attacks on science and reason. We also have a strong tradition
of faculty
members using their expertise to comment on public policy, as the late
Hans Bethe did as an advocate for nuclear non-proliferation, and as Kurt
Gottfried
is still doing as the co-founder of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
 I believe that now, as we proceed with our investments in scientific inquiry,
we should also be addressing the cultural issues that the invasion of science
by intelligent design embodies. This is an
issue that should engage not simply our
science faculty . . . but, in particular, our
social scientists and humanists. This is
above all a cultural issue, not a scientific
one. The controversy is about the tensions
between science and belief, reason and
faith, public policy and private religiosity.
Modern research universities have
become segmented. We have scientists
over here, humanists and social scientists
over there. Knowledge is divided into
ever-smaller categories; our specialization
becomes ever more narrow. I believe
it is time to put the disparate parts of the modern research university
back
together. . . . Social scientists should be asking questions such as: "How,
if at
all, might I.D. influence the public policy debate in the United States,
given our
strict separation of church and state?" "What would constitute
evidence of a
conscious or intelligent designer of the universe?" Humanists should
be asking
questions such as: "Are reason and faith polar opposites?" "Are
they
inevitably antagonistic to one another?" "How have the aesthetic
roots of religious
belief and the exploration of the spiritual shaped literature, music, art,
and culture?" "How might we frame conversations to talk about
when human
life begins amidst assertions that a definition of human life may be so
inherently
subjective as to preclude reaching a consensus?" These are large and
important questions. They go to the heart of our American democracy and
to
the essence of the human experience. . . .
Consistent with Cornell's land grant mission, I ask that humanists,
social scientists,
and scientists venture outside the campus to help the American public
sort through these complex issues. I ask them to help a wide audience understand
what kinds of theories, arguments, and conclusions deserve a place in the
academy----and why it isn't always a good idea to "teach
the controversies.". . .
Cornell is . . . a place that has nurtured great intellectual leaders who
have
not only made landmark contributions to their disciplines, but who are
willing
to speak out, frequently and forcefully, about the obligation of the academy
to pursue knowledge and truth unfettered by political or religious dogma.
Cornellians
who do will be acting in the great tradition of Cornell's founders,
Ezra
Cornell and Andrew Dickson White.
For the complete text of this address, go to:
www.cornell.edu/president/announcement_2005_1021.cfm
By speaking out on an important issue, Rawlings bucked the recent tendency
among
college presidents to be cautious in their public statements. In a survey
published in
the November 4, 2005, issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, the president
of
one large university, quoted anonymously, said: "Of deep concern should
be the neutering
of presidents to speak out on public and political issues because of pressure
. . . from trustees, donors, public officials." Rawlings does not entirely
agree with this
evaluation, citing the example of former MIT president Charles Vest, who
testified before Congress
on a number of policy issues. But Rawlings acknowledges that being an interim
executive gave him
an opportunity to take a different approach in this speech. "I didn't
feel that I had to talk about the
next three initiatives, because I don't have three new initiatives," he
says. "That gave me the freedom
to talk about something I'm interested in from a scholarly point of
view."
Some observers have noted that being outspoken in this manner
was somewhat out of character for Rawlings--and that perhaps
his attack on I.D. was an attempt to draw attention away from Cornell's
recent internal problems, including the resignation of President
Jeffrey Lehman '77 and the subsequent controversy. Rawlings
flatly denies this: "No, this came from my gut. This is something that's
been brewing and finally just spilled over. It was really a personal thing."
The reaction to the speech, Rawlings says, was mixed but more positive
than he expected. There
was some "hate mail" and he was excoriated by a Cornell student
group called Intelligent Design Evolutionary
Awareness (IDEA) for "blasting the emerging Intelligent Design theory
as anti-scientific and
religious in an unscrupulous, unknowledgeable manner." But Rawlings
says he was gratified to receive
congratulatory messages from fellow presidents John Hennessey of Stanford
and Shirley Tilghman of
Princeton, as well as from Cornell alumni and from faculty "at Cornell
and all across the country."He
says he has not seen the critiques posted at pro-I.D. websites and blogs,
including an open letter from
William Dembski, a "theistic evolutionist" who attempts to counter
Rawlings's arguments by asserting
that I.D. is supported by "nontrivial scientific work" (www.uncommondescent.com/index.
php/archives/419).
Rawlings is pleased that many people seem to have considered his entire
argument, including its
emphasis on the importance of religion. "This is not an attack on faith," he
says. "It's more an effort
to say: 'We in academia are somewhat at fault here, for having been
pretty one-sided in our presentation
of this issue.We ought to take faith more seriously and take people of
faith more seriously.' Ezra
Cornell said, 'The University should be nonsectarian--but I'm
putting a chapel right in the middle
of the campus, and I want the faculty and the students to go to the chapel.'He
said people of all faiths,
including no faith, were welcome at his university. I think Ezra Cornell
got it exactly right."
Leap of Faith
 Tiny but determined, the I.D. movement
arrives on campus
Last spring, Hannah Maxson '07 founded a new
student group. They set up a table at the Student
Activities Fair in the fall, started meeting at the
Ivy Room every Monday evening, and, on October
20, sponsored one of their first events--a debate
on the teaching of intelligent design (I.D.) in public
schools with students from the ACLU club. The next day,
Interim President Hunter Rawlings weighed in with his State of
the University speech excoriating the I.D. movement, and Maxson,
president of the Cornell chapter of the Intelligent Design and
Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club, found herself in the midst of a
national furor. She quickly fired off a brief press release defending
I.D. ("Ad hominem attacks and confusing people's religious
beliefs with their scientific research is not befitting a university
president") that was picked up in much of the subsequent media
coverage of Rawlings's speech. Several interviews with local and
national newspapers, including a large piece in the Chicago Tribune,
soon followed, and her in-box filled up with e-mail from
around the world.
Maxson, a slight, soft-spoken math major, is no stranger to controversy:
she's also active in the Cornell Coalition for Life, an antiabortion
student group. But she never dreamed that her "little
undergraduate science club" would draw so much attention. "I
don't like being in newspapers," she confesses. "It
certainly isn't
what I asked for. But I think people need to hear both sides of the
story."
Right now, the Cornell IDEA Club is a notably modest undertaking--
despite newspaper stories that reported up to eighty students on its
rolls, Maxson says that there are "probably six or
seven" regular members, including her brother Seth '07, a
physics major. But the club is a small piece of a large and wellfunded
machine. Founded by a UC San Diego student named Casey Luskin in 2001,
the IDEA Center now claims twenty-five such student chapters worldwide,
all with a professed aim to
"promote awareness of scientific evidence that supports intelligent
design theory." Like most I.D. proponents, Maxson treads
carefully around the religious dimension to the cause: her group
does not delve into the identity of the unnamed intelligent
designer who guides the mechanisms of life. "Basically, I.D. doesn't
go into this issue, so neither do we."
She's equally reluctant to discuss the IDEA Center proviso
that all club officers be Christians, for example, and shies away
from talking about how her unusual personal background shaped
her beliefs on science and religion. (Maxson, like her eight siblings,
was homeschooled and spent most of her childhood living
in remote parts of Central Asia, where her father, who studied
physics at Caltech, teaches English.) But she admits that her
faith did play a role in her unwillingness to accept the tenets of
evolutionary theory. "If I was an atheist, I'd have a hard
time
accepting that I.D. had any validity."
That's one statement that evolutionary biologist Will
Provine would agree with enthusiastically. "If you really believe
in evolution, of course you're an atheist," says the Alexander
Professor of Biological Sciences, a member of the Department
of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology since 1969. "You give me
any religion around the world, and I'll show you how it's
incompatible with evolution."
Provine, who invited Maxson and her club to speak to his
200-level evolution class this fall, has never been shy about confronting
religious challenges to evolutionary theory. "Long before
the I.D. controversy, I always invited creationists to my classes,"
he says. "I want my students to hear their arguments. I want
them to see creationists as real people and not weird little monsters."
Since the late 1980s, Provine has conducted several spirited
debates with Phillip Johnson, the retired UC Berkeley law
professor who is one of the I.D. movement's intellectual godfathers.
He's also gained a reputation as a bête noir for both sides
of the issue, in part because his blunt pronouncements on atheism
and science--not to mention his controversial advocacy of
the notion that human free will is merely a biologically encoded
response--make such effective talking points for the I.D. crowd.
"I've been a good provider for them, but they're a good
provider
for me, too," he chuckles. "Nothing helps my case better than
having an I.D. person in my classroom."
As a veteran of the creation/evolution culture wars, Provine
says that there's nothing new in the scientific objections that
intelligent design has mustered against evolutionary theory:
stripped of the carefully crafted non-religious terminology, I.D.
essentially recycles English theologian William Paley's teleological
"argument from design" of 1802, which posited that the intricacies
of such biological systems as the human eye bore the telltale
marks of God's handiwork. "The argument from design is as
old as the hills," says Provine, who adds that I.D.'s understanding
of modern evolution is similarly dated. "The evolutionary biology
they criticize is right out of the 1960s--it's completely outmoded.
What they can't criticize is what evolutionary biologists
actually think about now." Far more worrisome is the seriousness
of I.D.'s political challenge. Led by the Discovery Institute,
a Seattle think tank that is heavily funded by conservative foundations
and evangelical Christian donors such as Southern California
millionaire philanthropist Howard Ahmanson, I.D. proponents
have attempted to position intelligent design as a
scientifically legitimate counter-theory that could be legally taught
in public schools. Their ultimate target, Provine believes,
isn't Darwin but the constitutional firewall between church and
state that was raised by the 1962 Supreme Court decisions that
banned school prayer.
That wall has long foiled local school boards that have
attempted to re-introduce creationism or its variants, but--as
recent high-profile court cases in Kansas and Dover, Pennsylvania,
have shown--I.D. brings a new momentum to the cause, along
with a host of plausible-sounding scientific lingo and a motto
("Teach the controversy!") that effectively suggests free
and
open inquiry. "We're losing the battle on this," Provine
warns.
"And by fighting the I.D.ers we're pissing away our energy.
We
need to focus on the goal of the I.D. movement, which is getting
fundamentalist Christianity back into the schools." The implications
for federal grant funding in his field, he says, are downright
apocalyptic: "The word 'evolution' will be edited out
at the NSF
[National Science Foundation] level," he says. "This is a
real danger,
and for us to not discuss this danger is wrong."
To that end, Provine plans to visit high school science classes
around the state to speak about I.D. and evolution--taking up the
I.D. rallying cry to "teach the controversy," as it were. "I
don't
refute creationism; I just promote discussion among students,"
he says. "Although I'm an atheist myself, it's not that
I'm trying
to make them into one. I tell them to hold onto their beliefs. But
it's going to be a rough ride."
Maxson learned that lesson long before she stepped into
Provine's classroom. "I don't have any problem with
people who
don't agree with me," she says. "You sort of get used
to the fact
that you think differently from other people." She maintains that,
like all good scientists, she is just seeking the truth. At a recent
IDEA meeting, a group of biology grad students showed up--"just
to set us straight." Maxson sat and listened to the best evidence
that 150 years of scientific investigation could provide, and then,
politely, rejected it.
"They have some arguments that are pretty strong," she
admits. "But they aren't quite enough."
-- David Dudley
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