ID to Psychology
Leonard Magruder
05/16/2005
Leonard
Magruder, President of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform, announced
today that his organization has added a new research division to take on
the challenge of introducing the newly developed principles and tools of
Intelligent Design into the field of psychology. Mr. Magruder, a former
professor of psychology, a clinical psychologist also trained in research
design, said that much of the argument between neo-Darwinism and
Intelligent Design has to do with covert metaphysical assumptions. The
chief villain in Design’s complaints is philosophical: metaphysical
naturalism.
Psychology,
said Prof. Magruder, is a field riddled with unexamined metaphysical or
philosophical assumptions that should prove especially vulnerable to the
approach of Intelligent Design. For important insights on the issue we
quote from the new book about evolution, Doubts
About Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design, by Thomas Woodward:
“The
rhetorical consciousness of Design is rooted in a sense of profound
disgust about widespread gross malpractice in teaching about biological
origins. Evolutionary biology is seen as a field whose scientific content,
at the level of macroevolution, is deeply interwoven with unprovable
philosophical assumptions and whose integrity is plagued by unrepentant
patterns of deception and fraud. Any measure of success in overturning or
drastically modifying the Darwinian paradigm would dwarf nearly all
previous revolutions in the history of science. The cultural stakes of
this science drama could not be more elevated.
The
debate is building to a fever pitch in American society as it is
culturally central because the questions posed in any debate on origins
touch the deepest levels of our personal and societal notions on what it
means to be human. Those who succeed at crafting and telling the most
convincing story of origins hold in their hands supreme cultural
authority. If a paradigm collapse took place in the public universities,
one could expect it to trigger incalculable and highly unpredictable shock
waves through the secularized bedrock upon which so much of our
civilization is built. (note: The anomalies in Enlightenment philosophy
led to a declension towards nihilism, in postmodernism. ID is the
alternative to this. It will reverse direction back to the premodern
concept, known to all religions, of the Great Chain of Being.)
The
primary target of Design’s attack is the perceived suppression of free
speech, a pervasive misrepresentation of ‘what science really knows’
when it comes to biological origins. Design theorists see themselves as
spearheading an intellectual reformation within science, seeking to
restore academic integrity and to expose and dissolve networks of
self-deception as well as public deception. The main motive is simply the
denuding of what they believe is a contemptible flow of misinformation.
They see their task as simply telling the truth.”
Details
about the widespread deception can be seen in the new book by molecular
biologist Jonathan Wells, Icons of
Evolution. He tells not only of widespread distortion and
misinformation in the textbook discussions of these icons, but far worse,
of known and tolerated fraud.
The
public, for example has been misled to think that the fossils generally
support Darwinian continuity, that they manifest a pattern of steady,
gradual change. On the contrary, sudden appearance, coupled with stasis,
speak of gaps that are stubbornly persistent. The idea proposed by Gould
and Eldridge about “punctuated equilibrium” opened this entire area to
public discussion, arguing for the discontinuity of biological forms. Said
Gould, “It is too hard to invent a reasonable sequence of intermediate
forms, - that is, viable, functioning organisms - between ancestors and
descendants in major structural transitions.” We will have to accept
“many cases of discontinuous transitions in macroevolution.”
But
to get into the real problems with evolution you have to go into
mathematical biology, and the probabilities involved in the nucleotide
sequences in DNA. The search for proof of evolution theory today takes
place at the level of molecular biology. And at this level the case for
evolution goes completely out the window. The probabilities that it is not
true are astronomical, some are larger than all the atoms in the universe.
Certainly quantum leaps beyond Borel’s limits of the possible, which is
1 over 10 with 50 zeroes behind it. The probability, even under highly
liberal assumptions, of the formation by chance of the proteins and DNA
required by the smallest self-replicating entity is 1 over 10 followed by
167,626 zeroes. Evolutionary biology, forced now to confront its
anomalies, has arrived at the brink of empirical collapse of its truth
claims.
Much
of the mathematical proof that evolution could not be true took place at
the Wistar Institute Conference in 1966. Needless to say, the
evolutionists present quickly covered it up. More disproof came three
years later when philosopher Arthur Koestler brought together biologists
critical of orthodox Darwinism in the 1969 Alpbach Symposium. It was at
the Wistar and Alpbach Symposia that scientific skepticism of evolution
not connected to biblical objections began. The way the media skips all
this, going back to the Scopes trial, is high school journalism, designed
to keep people in total ignorance of the ongoing history of the debate.
We
need to note there are other rival theories current in biology besides
Intelligent Design. Neutralist genetic theory, transformed cladism, and
punctuated equilibrium among them. All pose a threat to classic Darwinism,
calling for substantial re-modeling of evolutionary theory.
Remember
as we go along that these are the problems within the camp of
evolutionists that scientists at K.U. don’t want the students of Kansas
to know about.
Those
in the Kansas evolution circle who say “no scientists believe in
Design” are simply lying, something that seems to come easily to
evolutionists. Evolutionists are boycotting the School Board hearings
saying Design is not science. Of the 23 who are speaking before the Board
for Design, from a list that appeared in The
Lawrence Journal -World, 22 are scientists.
The
Gallup Poll over the last 15 years showed that 90% of Americans subscribe
to some sort of “God-guided evolution.” Those who hold to a strictly
naturalistic evolution, in which there was no participation by a
preexisting intelligence has consistently remained around 10%. A special
poll of biologists by the National Academy for Science shows that 95% say
they do not believe in God. We understand now their fanaticism in trying
to hold on to evolution, it is their “security blanket.” The vast
majority of Americans share a solid intuition that all this did not come
about by random chance. Among all scientists about 40% believe in God. We
see here the impact of evolution theory on biologists. At 95% atheists
they have followed through on the implication of the theory. So can
students. We are teaching a religion.
The
goal of Design is not to insert a role for deity at any given point, but
rather to secure the freedom within the academy to range across all
possible explanatory perspectives, including the one that entertains the
possibility of God’s existence.
Here
is how the attack on Darwinism today is being carried out. All of the
leading theoreticians separate microevolution, which they grant, from
macroevolution of new complex systems, which they radically question. Then
they show what there is no empirical or fossil evidence that the
morphological chasms were ever bridged, step-by-tiny- step, moving along
the putative macro-evolutionary lineages. Then they argue that the chasms
between two different structures in the same lineage cannot possibly be
conceived in terms of hypothetical intermediates, the attempted thought
experiments go nowhere. Then they all invoke the crucial test of Darwin,
saying that if one can find an organism that could not possibly have
developed step-by-step, “my theory would absolutely break down.”
Darwin proposed this falsification test in 1859. Applying that test today,
we can only conclude that Darwin’s theory is falsified.
Going
back to Woodward:
“The
change that would be implied in the inference that can be made from
Intelligent Design would be more than a change of paradigms in natural
science. It would effect a new global research consciousness, a new ethos
which would reverberate through the social sciences, arts and the
humanities. It would be, in short, a new kind of life of the mind.”
The
rhetorical vision of ID is centered around the reinstatement of the
possibility that some intelligent designer of the biosphere exists, and
can be detected in some basic but rigorous way. Here the Design debate
connects with the theistic implications that have emerged from the
Big-Bang theory and the “fine-tuned” universe” (Anthropic
Principle). Indeed, Design’s theistic-friendly orientation invites the
connection with any field that is discussing the reasons for believing and
disbelieving in a creator or a deity of any kind, (as in Freud’s,
“Future of an Illusion”), whether philosophy, psychology, theology, or
anthropology.”
Vietnam
Veterans for Academic Reform is uniquely situated to extend the idea of
Intelligent Design to psychology because its president is a former
professor of psychology with a background in both clinical psychology as
well as research design.
We
quote from a 16-page position paper that Prof. Magruder has written, to
show the problem and the beginnings of some solutions, beginning with a
well-known statement regarding the collapse of psychology by a major
theorist of personality theory, Gardner Murphey. Murphey wrote this in his
monumental work of some years ago, Personality,
A Biosocial Approach to Origins and Structure:
“Neither
in content, nor in method can we be said to have solved the essential
problem of the starting point from which a psychology, any kind of
psychology, including a psychology of personality, could be written. These
difficulties are dwarfed by a more serious uncertainty as to the nature of
man and his place in the cosmos. The response of a part to the whole may
be important. The response of man to his cosmos may be a clue to him and
the cosmos alike. In a future psychology of personality there will surely
be a place for directly grappling with the question of man’s response to
the cosmos, there may be a touch of neurotic phobia in the persistence
with which much of the modern study of man has evaded this question. The
psychology of personality as it exists today will be crushed and
pulverized and a new creation made from the debris, not because of the
wisdom inherent in criticisms of it, but because in grappling with the
problems of man, it will be weighed in the balance and found wanting.
“We
speak and write today as if at last the full context and stature of man
were known. But like our predecessors, we shall rectify mistakes, not
primarily by the minor readjustment of the lines of the argument but by
recognition of the limitations of the whole present system of conceptions.
It is preparation for this destruction and rebirth of knowledge to which
serious research should be directed.”
Here
are the initial assumptions with which this exploration of the ideas of
Intelligent Design as related to psychology will begin. This is from our
position paper, An Existentialist
Critique of Psychology (which is available at no cost by e-mailing
Magruder44@aol.com with address):
- Psychology
must return to a new, more self-conscious relationship to philosophy,
by which is meant all constructions with reference to the whole,
including, of course, theology. It might be sufficient for purposes of
psychology if the heretofore cyclical and inconclusive history of
philosophy is factorially analyzed into the small number of logically
consistent positions within it with reference to which models of man
may be constructed and tested.
- Psychology
must become more critical of its methods, analyzing and refining its
version of the scientific method so as to exclude existential
(philosophical) variables, and where this proves impossible, make this
known in its statements.
- The
propagation of the faith of psychology, that is, scientism, as
distinguished from the confusion of its actual constructs and
accomplishments, must be minimized, not only because this is
essentially unscientific procedure, but because of the vast pedagogic
consequences of a metaphysics masking itself in the prestige of
science, and because of its oppressive influence on new hypothesizing.
- The
existential elements in psychology must especially be made
self-conscious and explicit in its practical and therapeutic uses if
the freedom of the patient is to be respected and his integrity before
existence maintained.
A
year or so ago Mr. Magruder did independent research under Dr. Paul
Mirecki of the Department of Religion at the University of Kansas on a new
test to determine one’s philosophical attitude, overt or covert. In
August he will again be a student working on this test, plus another to
study certain variables as related to one’s view of ultimate reality and
the impact of that on one’s personality. He will be available to discuss
the progress of the new Intelligent Design research project. There will be
attempts to explore the relevance of Behe’s concept of “irreducible
complexity” to psychology, as well as Dempski’s “exploratory
filter” and concept of “specified complexity.” We do know that Gould
wrote about “spandrels” in the brain that could not possibly have
resulted from evolutionary process. But the initial concern will be for
the hidden philosophical assumptions behind the current approaches of
psychology. This initial approach is based on the observation that
metaphysical assumptions of scientists about the existence or
non-existence of God play a crucial role in their thinking about what
sorts of explanations can be considered to explain natural phenomenon and
which ones cannot.
The
most extraordinarily important statement in the current controversy and
one of the most famous in the current literature is this by one of the
greatest in evolution theory, the late Stephen J. Gould:
“The
history of most fossil species includes two features particularly
inconsistent with Darwin’s idea of gradualism:
1.
Stasis. Most species
exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in
the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear;
morphological change is usually limited and directionless.
2.
Sudden appearance. In
any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady
transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once, and fully formed.
In
short, if evolution means the gradual change of one kind of organism into
another kind, the outstanding characteristic of the fossil record is the
absence of evidence for evolution.
If
you don’t share this statement with the students of Kansas, no one will
come to Kansas to do business. They will see the state as blanketed under
a massive cover-up and they certainly won’t want to do business with the
universities that brought this about. If you can’t share this with
students, then we are indeed surrounded by fanatics.
Dr.
Krishtalka of K.U. says the fate of the bioscience industry in Kansas is
at stake in the evolution debate. Not only does that beg the question, it
misses the issue. The issue is truth.
In
our March 8, 2005, article on evolution,
we reported on dozens of exactly similar conclusions by world-class
paleontologists and evolutionists such as Steven Stanley, George Gaylord
Simpson, D’Arcy Thompson, Donald Johanson, Pierre P. Grasse, David Raup,
Niles Eldridge, Richard Goldschmidt, Lynn Margulis, John Moore, Donn
Rosen, and E. White, all who say there is no evidence for macroevolution.
All
the School Board has to do to end this debate is hold up these statements
to the effect that macroevolution is not true, and ask the evolutionists,
“How can you possibly ask us not to mention the views of these world
famous scientists to students?”
Are
we really going to force our students to go back to those moldy old
biology textbooks that Wells has shown to be riddled with lies, and back
to that toothless old hag of a philosophy of life, which has already no
doubt killed the initiative of untold numbers of students, laid out with
glee by the eminent evolutionist Richard Dawkins, “The universe has no
design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind pitiless
indifference, and anyone who doesn’t believe in evolution is ignorant,
stupid, or insane.” Darwinists would sure jam it down your throat if
they could. They have in most states. But the students of Kansas are about
to be liberated.
In
Kansas we don’t believe in slavery.
***
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Leonard Magruder
Founder/President, V.V.A.R.
Phone: 785-312-9303
Magruder44@aol.com
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