Barbara Forrest: Philosopher Activist

Yesterday, the New York Times' most e-mailed piece was an article about free will (or the lack of it). Jason Stanley of Leiter Reports calls such enthusiastic response of the general public to popular philosophy topics, "Philosophy in the Public Sphere." (Conversely, it can also be described as physicists and neuro-scientists crashing a philosophers' forum.) Stanley finds it fascinating that such articles resonate so well with the ordinary reader. I think it is understandable - I myself enjoyed it thoroughly. We lay folks are always somewhat relieved whenever math and science shed some light on the mystifying and perplexing question many of us ask ourselves from time to time: What do philosophers do?  Ask an otherwise well informed non-philosopher and you are likely to receive evasive answers.

Sometimes philosophers do things that we understand readily. They participate in debates that concern us on a practical, daily basis. They fight shoulder to shoulder with other concerned citizens who favor honesty and integrity in civic discourse. Their passion and involvement bring forth tangible results. Barbara Forrest, professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University is one such philosopher in the public sphere. The SELU website describes her civic contributions thus:

"Dr. Forrest actively participates in efforts to promote church-state separation, the integrity of public science education, and civil liberties.  She serves on the National Advisory Council of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She is also a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, having served on the board of directors of the Louisiana affiliate.  Her other supporting memberships include People for the American Way, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the National Center for Science Education."

On Accidental Blogger, we have on several occasions addressed the danger of harmful meddling by religious and political extremists in social, cultural and ethical matters that affect the world at large. Recently Sujatha described the efforts by a conservative school board in her town, hell bent upon eliminating the International Baccalaureate program on the spurious grounds that it goes against American and Judeo-Christian values. Particularly bothersome is the tendency of religious extremists to interfere with scientific research and education which they wish to hijack in order to fit their deeply held faith based understanding of the natural world. One perpetual bee in their bonnet has been the teaching of evolution in schools.

We are familiar with the evolution vs creationism (masquerading as Intelligent Design) debate that has plagued several school districts, resulting in the Kansas School Board injecting ID in the science curriculum and Dover, PA succeeding in keeping it out by taking the school board to court. What we may not know are the behind the scenes shenanigans mounted by creationists to push their religious agenda down the throats of an unwitting public. Dr. Forrest has worked tirelessly to fend off the efforts by religious extremists to corrupt science education in her own state of Louisiana and elsewhere. She appeared as an expert witness for the prosecution in the Dover, PA ID ( Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District) case where a group of parents took the school board to court to keep it from introducing religion based creationism in the science curriculum. The outcome happily was a verdict for sanity and against obscurantism. Dr. Forrest was recently honored with the American Society of Cell Biology's Public Service award for her work in support of science education and biomedical research.

(Darwin in a Vise: Uncommon Descent, The Intelligent Design Weblog)

A list of Dr. Forrest's philosophical articles and her writings on creationism can be found here, including her book, Creationism's Trojan Horse. It is curious that the creationists at the Discovery Institute appear so fond of using tool box analogies to promote their agenda. First they fashioned the strategy of the "Wedge" to advance the cause of ID and later in the Kitzmiller vs Dover case they planned to squeeze the truth out of the supporters of evolution by employing the "Vise." I will leave you with a first person account of Dr. Forrest's experience as an expert witness against the Vise Strategy.

(An aside: This is the 500th post to appear on A.B. since its inception. Now I know why I am so much behind in my reading.)   

The “Vise Strategy” Undone:

Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District

By Barbara Forrest

In a May 6, 2005, post on his Uncommon Descent (UD) blog, intelligent design creationist William Dembski was talking tough. He offered a lesson for “Darwinists” drawn from the then-ongoing hearings held before the Kansas Board of Education on May 5-7 to discuss the Kansas science standards. The creationist-dominated board had hoped that pro-evolution scientists and ID creationists would debate revisions proposed by the creationist minority on the board’s Science Curriculum Writing Committee. These revisions included re-defining science to allow the supernatural as a scientific explanation. Refusing to lend legitimacy to this “Kansas kangaroo court,” scientists boycotted the hearings [1]. The only pro-evolution participant, representing pro-science groups, was attorney Pedro Irigonegaray, who cross-examined many of the twenty-three creationists who were brought in to testify at taxpayer expense [2]. These twenty-three are supporters of Dembski and his associates who have promoted ID for a decade from the Center for Science and Culture (CSC), the creationist arm of the Discovery Institute (DI), a conservative Seattle think tank.

Grousing that “only the evolution critics are being interrogated,” Dembski was “waiting for the day when the hearings are not voluntary but involve subpoenas in which evolutionists are deposed at length.” When “that happy day” came, Dembski predicted, the Darwinists “won’t come off looking well.” [3] On May 11, Dembski portrayed “evolutionists” as too chicken to participate: “[E]volutionists escaped critical scrutiny by not having to undergo cross-examination . . . by boycotting the hearings.” He proposed a “vise strategy” for “interrogating the Darwinists to, as it were, squeeze the truth out of them,” childishly illustrated with a photograph of a Darwin doll with its head compressed in a bench vise [4]. On May 16, he outlined his strategy: “interrogating Darwinists” about “five terms: science, nature, creation, design, and evolution.” [5] Under subpoena, they would be compelled to answer, hence the “vise” metaphor.

Dembski already knew that such a day of legal reckoning was approaching. Exactly one month later, on June 6, he sat across from me when I was deposed as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the first ID legal case, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District. He attended my deposition as the adviser to the lead defense attorney, Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center, and was scheduled to be deposed himself on June 13 as a defense witness. Besides being on opposite sides, there was another big difference between us: I showed up for my deposition. Dembski “escaped critical scrutiny by not having to undergo cross-examination” when he withdrew from the case on June 10 [6].

The rest of the article here. 

Comments

[Shunya]

Congratulations to the entire A.B. crew on hitting the 500 post milestone! Ruchira, you may be behind on your reading but you can take pride in livening up the blogosphere for at least a few people (including me) with your most excellent commentary!

[Sujatha]

Congratulations on the 500th blog post, Ruchira. I definitely hope that you will continue with AB instead of stopping in your 2nd year, as you mentioned in your comment on Joe's post!
I found this fascinating assertion in the NY Times article about
"But most of the action is going on beneath the surface. Indeed, the conscious mind is often a drag on many activities. Too much thinking can give a golfer the yips. Drivers perform better on automatic pilot."
How true. I've noticed, for example, that while playing the piano, especially a well-worn practised music piece, the moment I become aware of the fingers moving is the moment I lose control and stumble. I guess that exercising conscious control of the exact mechanics of playing has in some way corrupted the flow which I had originally achieved without the interruption of thoughts.
Free will could indeed, in my opinion, prove a stumbling block to achieving a flow through existence as we perceive it. If we go by the ancient concept of Maya, or the world as an 'illusion' totally dependent of the perceiver's perception (perhaps Shunya might like to weigh in on this), on a certain level, even this solid feeling keyboard and the fact that I'm typing is all just an illusion of 'me, my self, my body' separated from the underlying cosmic reality. So is 'Free Will' also a case of Maya? I find the concept highly appealing despite the high mumbo-jumbo factor.( I accept that it will not change the fact that there is no Free Will in having to cook dinner and do the dishes in this life.;) Those are all part of my current perceived realities!

[Shunya]

Not sure why, but I've never been able to will myself to debate free will. ;-) Sujatha, your doubts about the real and illusory have an ancient lineage. This is how Chuang-tzu, the Chinese Taoist master, philosopher and comedian of the fourth-century BCE, described his own moment of existential doubt:

Once Chuang-tzu dreamt that he was a butterfly, fluttering around, happy with himself, absolutely carefree. He didn't know that he was Chuang-tzu. Suddenly he woke up: there he was in the flesh, unmistakably Chuang-tzu. But he didn't know if he was Chuang-tzu who had just dreamt that he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming that he was Chuang-tzu.

[Ruchira Paul]

Shunya, you are doing a pretty nifty job at your own blog.

Sujatha, you (and Joe, Anna and Dean) of course contributed mightily to the milestone. Thanks.

The free will article was fascinating - the monkey of free will riding the tiger of the sub-conscious was a rather humbling analogy.

As for the free will to not cook dinner, I have mastered that one ever since the kids left home!

[Ruchira Paul]

What does this say about free will AND altruism?

[Sujatha]

Was it free will in the case of Mr.Autrey or an unthinking instinct born of his experiences in life ( Construction worker, ex-Navy- points to a high level of alertness and ability to react in split-seconds to dangerous situations)? He left his 4 and 6 year daughters on the platform as he jumped down, and one of the first things he did after the train stopped was to call out to the onlookers to reassure his kids. Putting myself in his situation, I would have clutched on to my kids for dear life and been part of the onlooking crowd. So, in essence, we should all be glad that there was somebody with the instincts and skills to jump in and save Mr.Hollepeter from a dire fate.