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allowed a little play, that wouldn't change very much.
Q. Where in Genesis, for example, does it state that there has been a relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds?
A. Again, I don't believe that it does.
Q. I know, but if you interpret it literally, where does it say that?
A. One calculates the genealogies, starting with Adam, and gets an age.
Q. Is that in Genesis, to your knowledge?
A. It's not all in Genesis. You might have to proceed through some of the begat sections of Chronicles and some of the other books, but that's how it's been done.
Q. Where in Genesis is separate ancestry from man and apes?
A. My answer is going to be the same to every one of these questions. That represents one possible interpretation.
Q. That's an interpretation, but it is not necessarily in there, is it?
A. It can't necessarily be in there since so many people who regard Genesis as an
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which is a widely circulated publication which would support the theory of creation-science?
A. Could you define the theory of creation-science for me in this context?
Q. Creation-science, let's at this point confine ourselves to the definition given in Act 590, since that's the issue at hand.
A. But you see it's an odd definition. One of the points it makes under definition I regard as inappropriate there. It says 2 kinds. That's a caricature of what evolutionists say. I don't believe the mutation and natural selection is sufficient, but that is surely not part of creation-science.
So If you confine the definition to this set of 6 points, then the answer is yes, but only because the definitions are so poor. Of course there's literature that says mutation and natural selection is insufficient. I forget what its called in logic, but to say that the acceptance of what anybody says is the definition of any one part of it commits one to the definition is false.
(Recess taken.)
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Q. Your statements concerning your position and conclusion that creation-science cannot be science, could you tell me again why you believe that creation-science is not?
A. Because its core belief requires that natural law be suspended for the sudden or flat introduction of basic kinds onto the earth, and science is defined as an enterprise based on natural law. The suspension there of not being science.
Q. Does the role or the definition and use of the term "kinds," is that precluded from being science?
A. What I said doesn't apply to the word kind. I mean kind to me is a very vague term, the likes of which I don't know. But the fiat introduction of any kind of life, be it a species a genesis or kingdom.
Q. Do you feel that we know all that there is to know about the natural law?
A. Goodness, if we knew everything that there was about the world I guess we would pack up and play golf for the rest of our lives.
Q. So there is more to learn?
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A. By definition in science, there is always more to learn. What a dull world if there weren't.
Q. Do you think that it would be scientific for a scientist to look at the origin of life or some organism and try to determine whether the origination of that life or organism was possible under the laws of nature?
A. Science, like any other enterprise, has boundaries. Science is that enterprise that attempts to describe and interpret the facts of the world under natural law, therefore attempts to study the origins of things under the laws of nature, and part of science.
Q. So the study of the limits of the laws of nature would be part of science?
A. The limits are not — the limits are not — limits have to do more with definitions of the enterprise, not with the facts of nature. Therefore, nothing about morality is part of science. Natural law doesn't deal with morality. But anything about the facts of nature come under the heading of natural law as we understand it.
Q. What was the last statement? I didn't
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hear it.
A. That the fact of nature as we understand it comes under the province of natural law.
Q. You use the term as we understand them.
A. Science is always tentative.
Q. If a scientist might resort to some scientific method and concluded that the origin of the first life could not have been by chance or by just the laws of nature operating, could that be scientific?
A. First of all, let me say that I have no professional opinion on the question of the origin of life is not what evolution deals with. So I am not going to be able to go very deeply into technical questions. But domain of science does not include things that don't have to do with natural law. I don't know what else one can say. And therefore, for instance, does not allow one to speak on questions of morality.
Q. Define evolution.
A. Evolution is the study of changes at several levels, either within local populations or from species to species that occur once life is on
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earth.
Q. Could you restate that? I really want your precise definition of what you consider evolution.
A. The science of evolutionary biology, that's really what I will call it, is the science that studies history of changes that life has undergone, both within populations and between species once it arose.
Q. Between species and what that arose?
A. Within populations. That's not a very elegant definition. The substance is there.
Q. According to your understanding of creation-science, does it deny the presence of evolution or the occurrence?
A. It denies the sufficiency of it to account for the living world as we know it. What literature I have read does not deny that a limited amount of evolution can occur.
Q. The evolution, these are common layman's terms, I mean the evolution of, for example deposition —
MR. ENNIS: I am happy to let the witness answer that question but in view of your
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earlier questions when you ask him his understanding of creation-science, does it allow some evolution to occur, are you talking about creation-science literature or as defined in Act 590?
MR. WILLIAMS: I want to talk about it in terms of the act unless otherwise specified.
MR. ENNIS: That's why I wanted to clarify that.
A. The act says you've got to believe in changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds.
Q. That could be fairly characterized as evolution?
A. Oh, yes, but the theory of evolution maintains that the whole pattern of life as we see it is a process of change by natural law. Evolution would not be satisfied by any means by the statement that only poodles and chihuahuas can be derived from the basic dog.
Q. But the creation science definition in Act 590 does include evolution to a degree.
A. But that's not evolution as we understand it. It's only a little bit of a change.
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That's not what the theory of evolution is fundamentally about. Just as, for example — never mind.
Q. You were going to say as for example. You make statements like in negotiations lawyers can't let them try?
A. Nineteenth Century creationists believed in a certain amount of natural selection but they used it only as a device for getting rid of extremely deformed individuals. But they weren't Darwinians. Quite the opposite. So in other words, it's not being an evolutionist to believe point 3.
Q. When you define evolution and discuss the changes that life has undergone between species, is it a necessary part of evolutionary theory that all species are related in some fashion?
A. Genealogically, yes.
Q. And that if you go back far enough there will be a common ancestor?
A. Yes, there are common ancestors. It's not impossible that if life arose from chemical constituents of the earth's atmosphere and oceans,
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that it might have done so twice, but yes, it's a claim of common ancestry, sure.
Q. So it is part of the theory of evolution, scientific theory of evolution as opposed to social evolution, that all organisms do have a common ancestor?
A. Again I qualify that. It's a claim of theory of evolution that all evolution are connected by ties of genealogy. It is not inconceivable, that life, if it arose from nonlife, could have made that transition a few times. However, it is probable that all life actually had a single common ancestry. In any case, even if there were say a few origins of the lowest level, changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals I think would be excluded. By no stretching of the term kind could a bacterium and human be placed as the same kind.
Q. So while it is not inconceivable that there were more than one — that there was more than one instance of life from nonlife, is it the prevailing view in the theory of evolution that life evolved from nonlife only once from that
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organism?
A. That's a very unimportant issue. I don't even know whether it's the prevailing view or not. It's not what we deal with. We have in the fossil record going back to 3 and a half billion years forms that we believe are the ancestor of all others. Those are the forms of very simple bacteria.
Q. Where do you believe those forms of life came from?
A. Again, I have to reiterate what I said, that is as an evolutionary biologist we do not deal — I do not have expertise at all on the issue of origins. It's curious, if I may make aside comments, how in a way the professional evolutionary biologists are within the linguistic limits of the debate placed counter to what is called creationism.
An evolutionary biologists as professionals deal with changes in life once life arises. One would have to know a lot more chemistry, for example, than I know to talk about the origins of life from nonlife. I just don't have a professional opinion in that area.
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Q. I am not trying to have you explain to me exactly how life emerged from nonlife, but is that not part of the general theory of evolution that life did emerge from nonlife?
A. It's not what evolutionary biologists study.
Q. You're limiting it to evolutionary biologists?
A. The theory of evolution as I studied it is a biological discipline that talks about the evolution of life once it arises. The term evolution has been around — the word evolution has been around in many usages for a very long time. Spencer applied it to the evolution of societies. Evolution was a vernacular word, and I don't deal with all those other meanings.
Q. But it does have other meanings, doesn't it?
A. All sorts of words have vernacular meanings that are wider than their technical ones, and people engaged in the technical studies don't necessarily know. Significance has a definition in statistics, but a statistician needn't know whether things —
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Q. In your study then as an evolutionary biologist, how far back would you say —
A. I go back 3 and a half billion years to the first life on earth.
Q. What's that first evidence that you are aware of?
A. The first evidence is bacteria from the fig tree Zimbabwe. And maybe somewhere else in Africa.
Q. And while perhaps not from that precise bit of bacteria that you are aware of, is it not true that bacteria are the oldest life is according to evolutionary thought presumed to be the ancestors for all subsequent life?
A. That's correct: Yes, the later life arose from.
Q. What within the scientific community, not necessarily within evolutionary biology, who would take us back farther, as a group or a subdiscipline?
A. Those biochemists that were interested. That's not all biochemists.
Q. Is there such a thing as an evolution biochemist?
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A. That are biochemists who study how life may have arisen from nonlife. I don't know what they call themselves.
Q. What is the theory as to how life arose from nonlife?
A. Again, I didn't even take organic chemistry in college, so I am speaking largely as a layman here. But the general feeling as I understand it —
MR. ENNIS: You can answer the question the extent that you have knowledge or opinion.
A. Is that life arose by natural processes and natural law.
Q. From nonlife?
A. Yes.
Q. Is it correct to say it was essentially a chemical reaction?
A. Awfully complex set of chemical reactions. As you know we can make from the constituents of the earth's atmosphere a lot of fairly complex organics, including amino acids. That's not life.
Q. Then within the, if I could refer to it, as the school of evolutionary thought, as opposed
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to just evolutionary biology or paleontology?
A. Again, I don't mean to be instructional early. But professional boundaries are very guarded in academia and it's not regarded happily when, people make pronouncements in areas they don't really understand. I don't know what you mean. If it includes the evolution of society, then I disclaim. Darwinian theory, for example, is not the only biological evolutionary theory — there is about genetic change in DNA and its consequences.
Therefore, when we talk about the evolution of society one can only speak by analogy. When we talk about those biochemical changes before the development of DNA, it again can only be by analogy. I don't really know what else to say.
Q. Do you consider yourself an evolutionary biologist?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. Perhaps I am being hampered by semantics here. But as a paleontologist you study fossils?
A. Yes.
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Q. Do you study the molecules of DNA and genetics as a paleontologist?
A. Only on very rare occasions when you get soft parts preserved.
Q. Have you made the study of the — I am just curious, sir as to what your area of expertise is?
A. My area of expertise is fossils. When I said DNA and consequences? No. I need to study DNA when I study the symmetry of the hand.
Q. I think we have established that within the general framework of evolution, and we are talking only about evolution of life here, not society and that sort of thing, that it is believed that life emerged from nonlife, these complex chemical reactions?
A. No. I didn't say that. I said that that is not what my profession of evolutionary biology deals with.
Q. I understand that. You're a professor of — you have a Ph. D. in a field which is obviously in geology and I am sure that you are aware of what are the other parts —
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A. I said that. I have to insist that it's not part of evolutionary biology. As I said to you.
Q. A part of evolution generally.
A. It is not part of what I define as the field of evolution. It is a part of science, to be sure. It's not my part of science.
Q. I understand that. I can appreciate that, that you would prefer to limit yourself to the area where you are really concentrated. But my question is, as you understand it, where did the matter, the nonlife come from?
A. Oh, that's not even a scientific question. If you want to go back that far. Science itself doesn't deal in ultimate origins. I am sorry, I thought you were giving me the chemical constituents of the earth. You asked me where matter came from, how can science deals with that question. I have no opinion on that. That is the mystery of mysteries.
Q. If I asked you where the matter on this planet came from, does science say anything about that?
A. Science has theories of how solar
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systems form, sure. That's a very different issue from ultimately where the matter of universe came from.
Q. What are some of the theories of where the matter on this planet came from?
A. Again, I disclaim any formal expertise. I am not unaware of the scientific American level of what people say. But as I understand it the most popular view refers to the origin of planets along with the sun from the condensation of a primordial cloud of dust and gas. I have a very rudimentary knowledge of physics and chemistry.
Q. That's commonly referred to as the big bang; is that correct?
A. Oh, no. The big bang refers to again. As I said it, to a time when all the matter of the visible universe may have been together in a single place and there is dispersion after an explosion from that place, the condensation of the solar system is a later event. You have to talk to the cosmologists if you want the latest word on those issues.
Q. Let me see if I understand you. So you feel natural origin of the first matter is not a
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scientific question?
A. How could one answer a question like that?
Q. Is the origin of the first matter then necessarily a religious question?
A. That again depends on definitions of religion. I don't think all unanswerable questions are by definition part of religion. From the parts of our own mental structure, I at least could only conceive of two answers. Either that matter — both of which involve a concept of eternity with which our poor minds can't deal. One is that matter was around forever, and two, that some other force was around forever that made matter at some point. We have no answers. I don't know how we get them. To me it is not necessarily a religious question. It's just a question unanswerable.
Q. But it's a nonscientific question?
A. Yes.
Q. And you can think — you can't think of any other alternatives to either that matter always existed or that something always existed which created the matter?
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A. I can't think of any other alternative. There may be. Certainly not in my subdivision.
Q. Do you think it is inappropriate to discuss in a public science classroom, for example, where that matter came from?
A. I don't know how you could. I defer to my attorney here.
MR. ENNIS: Just when you ask him if he thinks it's inappropriate, do you mean inappropriate asking for a legal conclusion whether it's unlawful?
MR. WILLIAMS: No; personally, in his opinion as a science professor.
THE WITNESS: I would never include it in a curriculum, because we have nothing to say about it. Suppose a student asked me a question about it, I would give my personal opinion as in any other subject.
Q. So if the student asked a question about it, you would give your honest opinion?
A. I would basically say why I didn't think it was science, a question that science can answer, it doesn't mean that he wouldn't have a discussion about it.
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Q. Could you tell me in kind of a nontechnical sense since I am a layman to science, upon what you base your opinion that the bacteria which we know of to be 3 and a half billion years old or something similar is the ancestor for all subsequent forces of life?
A. It's primary, based on the biochemical similarities that you create all forms of life. DNA of modern, bacteria which seem to be not significantly different from the old ones is the same stuff that of which we are made.
Q. Is there anything about the similarities which necessarily dictates that there is a common ancestry?
A. The only sensible story I can tell based on it.
Q. - It's the only sensible story.
A. I could tell another tale that isn't science. But I wouldn't be able to falsify it. I couldn't think of an observation that could run against it.
Q. But in trying to view the origin or the evolution of life 3 and a half billion years ago, can you think of an observation which would run
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against?
A. That in principle would run against?
Q. Yes. Run against this concept that —
A. Do you mean an actual observation that does run against or an observation in principle that might?
Q. First of all, are there any, to your knowledge?
A. Observations that run against?
Q. Yes.
A. There may be some that people have claimed have. But I know of none that in my interpretation does. If you ask me can I conceive of one, sure.
Q. Would you give me one?
A. Species it turned out, which I didn't, but it could have, when people started studying biochemical similarities, that based on DNA sequences or amino acid sequences, that humans were as closely related to bacteria and yeast as to chimpanzees. I have a real hard time reconciling that with notions of descent. It didn't work out that way. Biochemical taxonomies bear a marked resemblance to conventional ones.
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Q. So what you are saying is because biochemically we are closer to a chimpanzee than to a bacteria, then and I assume is the chimpanzee closer to the bacteria than we are?
A. No, no. We are both so far, it's hard to say.
Q. But because we are closer to the chimpanzee than we are to a bacteria that there has been this common ancestry at some point?
A. That's not what I said. Your question was there any statement that can falsify evolution and I gave you which the converse doesn't necessarily hold. I can think of no other reasonable interpretation of that fact.
Q. Do you think that all scientific evidence on theories of origin should be taught in the classroom?
A. One of these is a question of definition. What do you mean by theories of origin?
Q. I am talking about theories of origin of man, of life, and of the universe.
A. See, because again, we talked about theories of the origin of matter. I already said
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that that kind of ultimate question really isn't a scientific one. We don't teach that. If you confine your questions about origins to those subjects with which science deals, then it's almost tautological. If you confine it to the objects, subjects with which science deals, then yes, all scientific evidence should be taught. Let me back-track. I don't mean that any claim ever made in history that is testable, after all there are testable claims that have been made, that have been falsified, and those needn't be taught. One need not teach that the earth might be flat. One need not teach that the sun goes around the earth. Those are scientific claims in the sense that they are testable. They were tested and found wanting.
Q. If there is scientific evidence which would — if there is scientific evidence for creation, do you think it should be taught?
A. There can't be. No, I can't because it's a definitional point again insofar as creation deals with miraculous suspension of law as we were discussing before. And that isn't science. There cannot be such.
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Q. For example, under Act 590, one of the portions of the definition of creation-science indicates a relatively recent inception of the earth. Now, would you agree that, first of all there is evidence as to the age of the earth?
A. Yes. And it all points to the falsity of part 6.
Q. But if there should be evidence which points to a relatively recent inception of the earth, do you think that should be discussed? Scientifically, that is?
A. No. If there were real evidence, yes. If there were real evidence that the sun went around the earth, it should be taught. The fact that some people claim it, which some people do, the very fact empirically that some people have that claim doesn't mean it should be taught. I am aware that people make that claim, but that doesn't mean it should be taught.
Q. I am not asking you to adopt that as being necessarily scientific. I am really asking if there is scientific evidence for that statement, or that contention of a relatively recent inception of the earth —
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A. But it has to be real evidence, it can't just someone's say so. Yes, that's a testable claim, and it's been tested and found false. If any new evidence came around, one would discuss it. But I am aware of none.
Q. If there is scientific evidence on the insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about I think you said something to the effect of all living kinds from a single organism, do you think that should be discussed in a public school science classroom?
A. That to me is one of the ways in which the bill is very poorly written, because to me it is not part of creation-science to claim the insufficiency of mutation and natural selection. I think most evolutionists think that mutation and natural selection are insufficient. I happen in my own personal views think they are a little more insufficient than other people. But even the most orthodox Darwinians, Mr. Ayala, would argue that genetic drift plays some role. To me that's an example of how the bill is badly written. For purposes of convenience, I think that we can refer to it as creation-science, and
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that's what the bill speaks of. I think it might be a bit clearer.
Q. In your article in DISCOVER MAGAZINE, you discuss or differentiate between a theory and a fact.
A. Yes.
Q. What do you consider a theory to be?
A. To me a theory is a set of ideas that attempts to interpret and explain the facts of the world.
Q. If you take facts from the facts you derive or you get or hypothesize theories; is that correct?
A. It's a little more complicated than that. Because not all theories that anyone has ever tried arise as mere inductions from facts. Theories are tested by studying the facts of the world.
Q. Would you say that the fact that the earth is not flat is a theory?
A. No. It's a fact.
Q. At one point it was a theory, wasn't it?
A. Oh, no, it was always a fact. We just didn't always know it.
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Q. But it was offered as a theory, and then in some way that was measured?
A. Indeed, it was offered as a fact. No. It was offered as a fact and people were wrong. No. Theories are not facts. Theories are structures of ideas that interpret and explain facts. I am aware that in the American vernacular the theory is used differently to mean imperfect fact. It is not what it means to a scientist.
Q. When you use the term American vernacular, are you talking exclusive of the scientific communities?
A. Since scientists always use the vernacular they mix the two on occasion also.
Q. So this concept at the present time of differentiating between a theory and facts is one which may not be commonly held by the scientific community?
A. I am not saying it's never transgressed. I think it is commonly held.
Q. When is the difference between a theory and a scientific theory?
A. That really has to do with incommensurate things, namely again vernacular and scientific
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usages. A scientist shouldn't use the term accept to mean scientific theory. In the vernacular we say I have a theory about why the Yankees lost last month. That's not the way a scientist would use the term.
Q. When you talk about evolution as being both a fact and a theory, as I understand what you are saying, and let me see if I can briefly summarize it, what you're talking about there is the concept on the first hand that evolution is a fact because we can observe certain changes, and it's a theory in the sense —
A. Can I stop you?
Q. It's a theory in the sense that from these observed changes we can try to extrapolate the larger changes which have occurred over time which we cannot observe?
A. No, that is not a correct characterization.
Q. Correct it for me.
A. Sure. The facts of evolution of which we by no means know all of them, are merely the path ways of evolution, the ones we know and the ones we don't know. The ones we don't know are
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not yet in our vocabulary, but when we know them they will be the facts. The theory of evolution is how you interpret the causes of those connections. The processes, the ways by which those connections were established, whether by natural selection, whether by some other mechanism. The distinction is not between those genealogical connections we know and those we don't know. It's rather between the mere information which is the tree of life, and the modes of explanation for why that came about. The second being the theory. Darwin made that distinction all the time.
Q. Also on the first page of your article, there is, I think an aside concerning President Reagan's remark that you devoutly hope that his remark was campaign rhetoric. I thought you didn't use devout in a religious sense?
A. Oh, no. Just meaning very much hope.
Q. Devout to some people it does have a religious connotation?
A. Yes. But you will admit it also has a vernacular connotation.
Q. I have a hard problem trying to really differentiate between a fact and theory. You
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define fact to be confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent. Now, if that is what a fact is —
A. That's all it can be because science doesn't deal in certainty.
Q. Can a theory then not rise to the level of being a fact?
A. No. It doesn't mean it can't be right, but that's just not what a fact is. Theories are ideas that interpret and explain facts. They are just something else, they don't arise to the level.
Q. In your definition of the fact you kind of describe it without saying what it is. It has been confirmed to such a degree?
A. It's a piece of the world. This is a cup, I can describe what it's made out of. There is not a theory about cups. Facts are data, what the world is made out of. Theories are ways in which we interpret and explain how they operate, why they are here, et cetera. How they got here. Their ultimate why's we don't deal with.
Q. Are creation-science and to use Bill's term evolution science incompatible?
A. Yes.
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Q. If there were, assuming arguendo, there were a creator at some point, which created that first — that bacteria on the fig tree, and from there life evolves, would they not be compatible?
A. That's not what the bill says.
Q. I understand that. I am asking if there are incompatible?
A. Yes. There is a part of it that is incompatible.
Q. What is that part?
A. The fiat creation of the bacterium. Because that also involves the suspension of law. If you take Newton's law view of God that God is a clockwinder who sets up the laws of the universe, then let it run, is the universe. But again, I point out this act does not permit that version of creation.
Q. But again, you have to look at the definition, and if you look at that definition it says that —
A. But it says separate ancestor man and apes. And if you have a bacterium there would not be separate ancestry.
Q. I take it that you read those A, B — 1
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through 6 under 4-A there to be an all, inclusive definition of creation-science?
A. It doesn't have to be all inclusive, but I take it they at least include these or it wouldn't be law.
Q. I am just asking how you are reading it.
A. My vernacular as a nonlawyer reading is that if it says these 6 are there, they are certainly part of it, and several of them are directly contradicted by the scenario that you just gave me.
Q. That would be nonetheless an act of creation?
A. What would?
Q. A creator, whatever that might be.
A. Making the bacteria.
MR. ENNIS: Are you asking the witness if there are other religious interpretations of Genesis that are not inconsistent with evolutionary theory?
MR. WILLIAMS: No. I never asked that.
MR. ENNIS: It sounded like what you are asking.
MR. WILLIAMS: I think it presupposes
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your whole theory of the case.
MR. ENNIS: If you would like to ask the witness that, we would be happy to answer.
Q. Are you aware of any scientific alternatives to the theory of evolution?
A. How do you define the theory of evolution?
Q. I want to take it in its broad scientific sense. Including not only what you have described as the change within populations or between species, but also going back to that emergence of life from nonlife.
A. I don't define it that way.
Q. But are you aware of any scientific alternatives to all, or a portion of the theory?
A. Again, I don't understand that. Scientific alternatives, any one of the particular proposals, there is a proposal called Darwin's or the strict version of Darwin's theory argues that natural selection is about all there is as an agent of evolutionary change. There are scientific alternatives to that. There have been others historically— Lamarckism was the most prominent— but those are all within science.
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Q. But those are not different than evolution, they are simply —
A. They are different mechanisms of evolution. But they all accept the facts.
Q. Are there any scientific alternatives to evolution?
A. But that' s what scientific alternative is. Lamarckism is a scientific alternative as an explanation of evolution. Scientific — oh, you mean to evolution itself. Again —
MR. ENNIS: Do you understand the question?
THE WITNESS: I think half of it.
MR. ENNIS: I would rather you not answer the question unless you're sure you understand what it is. I am happy to have you answer the question that you understand.
Q. Are there any scientific alternatives to evolution?
MR. ENNIS: You mean to the fact of evolution, theories of different mechanisms to explain it?
Q. The theory aspects of evolution.
A. You see, that's where the problems are.
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Insofar as evolution is a fact, there are no known alternatives. It's just a fact of the world. We could be wrong, of course. We can always be wrong. Whether there are alternative theories, of course there are, but they are all evolutionary theories. I don't know how else to answer.
MR. BARNES: You're asking if there is a scientific theory that incorporates a view of the world that excludes evolution?
MR. WILLIAMS: I think —
THE WITNESS: I don't see how there could be. If that's what you are asking, the answer has to be no. There can't be scientific theory that denies the facts of the world.
Q. Are you aware of any scientific alternatives to the evolutionary view of the emergence of life from nonlife?
MR. ENNIS: I object to the question because it assumes that the emergence of life from nonlife is part of evolutionary theory and the witness has testified that it is not.
MR. WILLIAMS: He has testified that under the general umbrella of evolutionary theory that is part of it.
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THE WITNESS: No, I denied that. I thought I said that there are vernacular usages that to me more middle things than clarify. I would not, for instance, allow views on the evolution of society to be encased within evolutionary theory.
Q. I am talking about the evolution of organisms. Is part of the theory of evolution of organisms a theory that life did emerge from nonlife?
A. That's not what I studied.
Q. I am not asking what you studied.
A. I said that it was a common opinion of my colleagues that that was so.
Q. Are you aware of any scientific alternatives to that aspects.
A. People have made other proposals and it doesn't make them scientific.
Q. In your opinion that are scientific.
A. That's not my area. I can't testify to it any more than I can about different theories about the evolution of society about which I know nothing and am dubious in any case.
Q. One of the criticisms that I have read
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and heard leveled at creation-science has been that it essentially is anti-evolution, that it seeks to criticize evolution. Do you agree with that?
A. As I define evolution, indeed. The claim for a separate ancestry for man and apes contradict evolutionary theory as I understand it, as to do many of the other statements in these six points.
Q. When you quote — was it one of Darwin's basic objectives to try to disprove or not to disprove but to criticize the theory that species had been separately created?
A. Yes, of course.
MR. KLASFELD: I think the point that Mr. Williams is making is that there has been criticism of creation-science that as a science is limited only to criticizing evolution and not offering alternative theories of its own, and I think his question was are you aware of that —
THE WITNESS: Yes. It has offered no alternative scientific theories.
MR. WILLIAMS: I want to ask that one attorney handle the objections or questions or
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statements or whatever they might be, all right.
MR. ENNIS: That's fair.
Q. I think you have answered my question in the affirmative that one of the main purposes of Darwin in his writings and research was to show that these — to criticize, if you will, the theory that each species had been separately created.
A. Yes.
Q. So he started out in a sense trying to criticize a previously-held theory, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. In the history of scientific theories and scientific thought, have theories arisen or began as merely criticizing an existing theory, do you understand that question?
A. Certainly, and I also see exactly where you are driving. But remember that Darwin not only criticized what came before, but offered a whole mode of explanation that was scientific as to why he proposed an alternative. No, in fact Darwin looked at it historically did not do that at all. He developed the theory of natural selection in 1838 largely before he developed most
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of the criticisms of fact.
Q. That was not my question. In the history of scientific thought have not many theories arisen at least in their genesis, if I can use that term, to criticism of other theories?
A. But not without proposing some scientific alternative.
Q. But you would agree with my —
A. No, I wouldn't. Because the answer is not without proposing some scientific alternative.
Q. What do you define as a scientific theory?
A. Whatever I said five minutes before.
Q. We were talking about — you said a theory in your article is a structure of ideas that explain and interpret facts.
A. Right. I will stand by that.
MR. WILLIAMS: Let's take a short break.
(Recess taken.)
Q. Look at section 4-B of Act 590 please, which is the definition of evolution science.
A. Right.
Q. Evolution science is defined in Act 590, Dr. Gould, to mean the scientific evidences for
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evolution, and inferences from those scientific evidences in that it lists several things that it does include. As formulated in Act 590, would you say that evolution science is a theory or a fact?
A. First of all, let me say that some of the statements in 4-B are absurd from the point of anybody's definition of evolution, whether it be fact or theory. For example, point 2, the sufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of present living kinds from simple earlier kinds.
As I testified before, I know of no evolutionist who regards mutation and natural selection as utterly efficient to do that. And five, "Explanation of the earth's geology and the evolutionary sequence by uniformitarianism," which is in its strict definition is held by no geologist, so therefore I find it — let me say for the record that I find it hard to answer that question because of the definitions here. But therefore I guess I can't. I can only reiterate what I said, that the fact of evolution is simply the bare bones statement that organisms are connected by ties of
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descent and evolutionary theory — and the theory of evolution are the proposals about mechanisms and processes that explain how the tree of life got to be where it is.
Q. Is the theory of evolution as you have articulated it testable?
A. Sure. Theories of evolution.
Q. Right, theories.
A. They have to be, or they are not science.
Q. Are they falsifiable?
A. That's part of the definition of testable.
Q. Are they observable?
A. Depends on what you mean by observable. Very, very little of science deals in absolutely direct visual observation. I am looking at you now.
Q. So is observability part of a definition of a science?
A. Not direct visual observation, because whoever saw an atom.
Q. What is meant by that term as you understand it?
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A. I don't know. You have to tell me what you mean by it.
Q. Did Popper use that term?
A. I don't know.
Q. You know who Carl Popper is?
A. Sure.
Q. Do you recall his writings on philosophy of science?
A. In the distant past, one has read a lot of them. I am still vaguely aware of some of what he says. But I am not going to commit myself.
Q. You don't know whether he used the observability as a criteria of science?
A. Read me a quotation and I will tell you what I think it says.
Q. What about predictability?
A. Are we talking about Popper or me now?
Q. Yes.
A. You will have to read me what Popper says. He is no God of course.
Q. Would you agree with Popper's definition of what is a scientific theory?
A. I don't know. You have to read it to me.
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Q. You are not familiar enough with it to be able to converse?
A. He has written that many works (indicating) and he has also changed his mind on a lot of it. If you read me a definition, I will tell you what I think it says.
MR. WILLIAMS: Let's take a quick lunch break.
(Luncheon recess: 12:30 p.m.)
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AFTERNOON SESSION
12:50 p.m.
STEPHEN JAY GOULD, having been previously sworn, resumed the stand and testified further as follows:
EXAMINATION (cont'd.)
BY MR. WILLIAMS:
Q. Are you aware that Popper in his autobiography, which is entitled UNENDED QUEST, says, "I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program— a possible framework for testable scientific theories"?
A. Are you aware that he has modified that view since then?
Q. First of all, you are aware that he wrote that?
A. Yes.
Q. What is his modification as you understand it?
A. I forgot the quotation.
Q. Could you paraphrase what you think he said?
A. That he now regards it as testable.
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Q. When did he modify that, roughly?
A. I don't know the date of the statement, but it was published in SCIENCE MAGAZINE, Nature or THE SCIENCES. And it was last year, but I am not sure that was the original statement. It was quite recent.
Q. Is science concerned where theories come from?
A. Sociology is. Scientists are interested in it as human beings, but the distinction that scientists and that philosophers make between context and logic of theories are different things.
Q. Scientists, as I understand it — correct me if you think this is wrong —
A. I mean the theory could come to one in a dream, as long as it's testable.
Q. The source of a theory is not really the important thing?
A. Yes. Source is important. One wants to know about it, one wants to understand what kind of an activity science is.
Q. You said earlier you thought theory of evolution was testable.
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A. There is no theory of evolution. There are a variety of theories. To be scientific theories they must be testable, they must be falsifiable.
Q. There are a variety of theories?
A. Yes.
Q. But if there is a thread which runs through all of those theories
A. That thread being the common acceptance of the fact that what they are trying to explain is the fact of evolution, yes.
Q. And can that commonalty itself be tested?
A. It has been. If the commonalty is merely the basis, the factual basis that they are trying to explain, yes.
Q. I don't know if you answered this question or if I asked it before. Would the evolution or emergence of life from nonlife be testable?
A. You keep pushing me on that one. I am going to disclaim again. It's not my subject, I am not going to tell you about the evolution of science, I don't know anything about it. The
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things I don't know about I can't tell you about.
Q. Well, you are a historian of science, aren't you?
A. Yes.
Q. I mean, to be a historian of science, don't you have to have some knowledge of science generally and all of these concepts?
A. Do you mean as a historian of science do you have to know about all of science? No, I am a historian of parts of science. There are books on it, I have never read them, reviewed them, I couldn't. The work I have done on the history of science is on the history of evolutionary thought and the history of evolutionary theories.
Q. Who are the most noted authorities, living or dead, on the origin of life?
A. I hardly even know that. I know some of the names. The grand old man is Oparin in Russia. And in this country I suppose the leading person is Leslie Orgel at the Saulk Institute in California.
Q. What, to your knowledge — is that a he or a she?
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A. It's a he.
Q. What does he say about the origin of life?
A. I haven't read the book in ages. I am really not up on the subject. I am sorry, I don't mean to be evasive. I do not have a strong interest in that subject because of my lack of chemical background.
Q. What observations or experiments would disprove the theory regarding the evolution of life from nonlife?
A. Can't you ask me about subjects I know about?
Q. In your article you state "that I cannot envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory that I know."
A. Yes.
Q. Are you using "know" in the authoritative sense?
A. No. In my definition of evolutionary theory, namely that evolutionary theory deals with changes in organisms once they are around.
Q. You stated in your article in DISCOVER that, "Creationists pervert and caricature this
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debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it." What is that common conviction that you refer to?
A. That evolution occurred, the fact of evolution.
Q. Are you normally given to calling things convictions?
A. Oh, it's a permissible vernacular use, sure.
Q. How do you define a conviction?
A. In that context of that sentence, a conviction is what we accept strongly. And we accept things strongly for good reasons and bad. The obvious ancillary in this case is that we have that conviction for good reasons. That's what the rest of the article is about.
Q. You quote Duane Gish at the bottom of that page —
A. 35?
Q. Yes. — where it is said he says, this is not you, "We do not know how the Creator created, what processes He used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe." Does Act 590 necessarily