DR. WEINBERG: Thank you. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you. I should say at the outset that I haven't read the textbooks in question and I'm not a biologist.
My Nobel prize is not in biology, but is in physics. But I have been a physicist for a long time. And I think I have a good sense of how science works. It doesn't deal with certainties. We don't register things as facts that we have to swear allegiance to.
But as mathematics and experiment progress, certain bodies of understanding become as sure as anything reasonably can be. They attract an overwhelming consensus of acceptance within the scientific community. They are what we teach our students.
And the most important thing of all, since our time is so precious to us, they are what we assume as true when we do our own work. Evolution -- the Theory of Evolution through natural selection has certainly reached that status as a consensus.
I've been through these issues not very much professionally in recent years, but I was on a panel of the National Academy of Sciences some years ago that reviewed these issues in order to prepare an amicus brief in a similar argument that was taking place in Arkansas at that time. At that time, it had reached the courts. We know that there is such a thing as inheritable variations in animals and plants. And we know that these change through mutations. And it's mathematically certain that as given inheritable variations, that you will have evolution toward greater adaptation. So that evolution through natural selection occurs can't be in doubt.
As I understand it, many who want to put alternative theories into our textbooks argue that, although that may be true, we don't know that that's all that happens, that there is not some intelligent design that also assists the process of evolution. But that's the wrong question. We can never know that there isn't something beyond our theories. And that's not just true with regard to evolution. That's true with regard to everything.
We don't know that the theory of physics, as it's currently understood, correctly accounts for everything in the solar system. How could we? It's to complicated. We don't understand the motion of every astroid in the astroid belts. Some of them really are doing very complicated things. Do we know that no angel tips the scales toward one astroid moving a little but further than it otherwise would have in a certain time? No, we can never know.
What we have to do is keep comparing what we observe with our theories and keep verifying that the theories work, trying to explain more and more. That's what's happened with evolution and it continues to be successful. There is not one thing that is known to be inexplicable through evolution by natural selection, which is not the same as saying that everything has been explained, because it never will be. The same applies to the weather or the solar system or what have you.
But I can say this, and many of the peak scientists here will have said, I am sure, the same thing. You must be bored hearing this again and again. But how can you judge? I'm not a biologist, you're not biologists.
There is a natural answer which is very congenial to the American spirit, I think. And that is, well, let the students judge. Why shouldn't they have the chance to judge these issues by themselves? And that, I think, is the argument that many are making.
But judge what? Judge the correctness of evolution through natural selection? Judge the correctness of Newton's law or the conservation of energy or the fact that the Earth is round rather than flat? Where do we draw the line between the issues that we leave open to the student's judgment and the issues that we teach as reasonably accepted scientific facts, consensus theories?
The courts face a similar question. They often are presented with testimony or testimony is offered, for example, that someone knows that a certain crime wasn't committed because he has psychic powers or someone sues someone in tort because he's been injured by witchcraft. The Court does not allow -- according to current doctrines, the Court does not allow those arguments to go to the jury because the Court would not be doing its job. The Court must decide that those things are not science. And the way the Court does is by asking: What -- do these ideas have general scientific acceptance? Does witchcraft have general scientific acceptance? Well, clearly, it doesn't. And those -- that testimony will not be allowed to go to the jury.
How then can we allow ideas which don't have general scientific acceptance to go to high school students, not an adult jury? If we do, we are not -- or you are not doing your job of deciding what is there that is controversial. And that might be an interesting subject to be discussed, as for example the rate of evolution, the question of whether it's smooth, punctuated by jumps or whether it's -- or whether it's just gradual. These are interesting questions which are still controversial which could go to students and give them a chance to exercise their judgment.
But you're not doing your job if you let a question like the validity of evolution through natural selection go to the students, anymore than a judge is doing his job or her job if he or she allows the question of witchcraft to go to the jury. And why this particular issue of evolution? Why not the round Earth or Newton's theory or Copernicus' [theory], the Earth goes around the sun? Well, I think it's rather disingenuous to say that this is simply because there's a real scientific conflict here, because there is no more of a scientific conflict than with those issues.
I think it's clear that the reason why the issue was raised with regard to evolution is because of an attempt to preserve religious beliefs against the possible impact of the Theory of Evolution. I don't think teachers have any business either preserving religious beliefs or attacking religious beliefs. I think they should teach science. And science, as the courts understand it, in that other context, is what is generally accepted by scientists.
And what is the evidence that evolution through natural selection is generally accepted through science? General acceptance doesn't mean unanimity; I know there are Ph.D. scientists who take an opposite view. There's not one member of the National Academy of Sciences who does. There's not won one winner of the National Medal of Science who does. There's not one Nobel Laureate in biology who takes the view that there's any question about the validity of the Theory of Evolution through natural selection or that there is any alternative theory that's worth discussing.
So by the same standards that are used in the courts, I think it is your responsibility to judge that it is the Theory of Evolution through natural selection that has won general scientific acceptance. And therefore, it should be presented to students as the consensus view of science, without any alternatives being presented.
Thank you very much.
QUESTION FROM SBOE MEMBER: I understand that the probability of spontaneous mutations having formed even the simplest of life is the probability of one to [many powers of ten]. And yet I understood you to say that it's with mathematical certainty that we can say that evolution through natural [selection occurred]. I don't understand.
DR. WEINBERG: Well, there are two different issues here. One is the issue of whether or not the development of living things, once life started, has proceeded through the process of evolution as described by Darwin being driven by natural selection.
I would say that's mathematically certain, because you can prove that if you -- we know there are inheritable variations and that changes occur through mutations. And once that happens, you know that there will be an increased adaptation to the environment. I don't say that you can prove that's the only thing that happens. That was the point I made.
Then you raise an entirely different point, which is the point about the origin of life. I didn't have anything to say about the origin of life. I don't believe that anyone knows what is the probability, given certain environment, that life will arise. It is not something that we know really how to calculate.
However, let me point out to you that it may be very low. It may be that on any given planet, the chance that the conditions will be right for life to start and that life will actually get started is extremely low. On the other hand, there are a lot of planets. I don't just mean the nine in our solar system. But I mean something like billion stars within our galaxy, which we now know a good fraction of them have planets and billions of galaxies that we've observed. And very possibly, according to the most widely accepted cosmological theories, which are not at all a consensus, but just our best guess, very likely an infinite number of galaxies.
Well, if the chance of life forming was [extremely small], which I don't think it is. I don't think we know that. If you have that many planets, then there's a good chance that life will form on one of them. And the people on that planet will look around and say, "Gee, aren't we lucky?"
QUESTION FROM SBOE MEMBER: I just kind of wanted to, I guess, clarify something in my own mind, because much of what you said, you were talking about requiring another alternative theory to be taught other than evolution. I'm not in favor of that. I think just because there are known scientific weaknesses and there may be factual errors that need to be taken out of the textbooks, that doesn't mean it's an alternative theory. And I am of the belief and I have not heard any other Board members recommending alternative theories. The TEKS do not require publishers to put alternative theories in the books. And from the reviews that were done by Texans for Better Science Education, they are not supporting the idea of putting alternative theories in the books.
I happen to believe that science books should contain science. But if there is a scientific weakness to that theory or if there's a factual error, that needs to be addressed. And somehow there's a feeling that a scientific weakness equates with religion or creationism, when it doesn't. It can't be in there. As you well pointed out, that would violate what the Supreme Court has already ruled on, that creationism is inherently religious.
I just wanted to kind of clarify that, because you mentioned the alternative theory several times in your speech. And I'm not supporting that. And I haven't seen any evidence in the reviews of the textbooks that are asking for an alternative theory to be included.
DR. WEINBERG: I'm not familiar with the testimony that's been presented here, so I can't respond in detail. But I know about this issue in general terms through my own experience with it in the past. And it is certainly true that the same people who have, in the past, been pushing for the idea of intelligent design as an alternative theory to be presented along with Darwinian evolution are the ones who emphasize supposed weak points in the theory of evolution.
I am not aware of any weak points. I am aware, of course, that there are things where it's difficult to trace the chain of cause and effect that has led to the development of certain structures. The classic examples like the eye and feathers on birds. I think most of these actually have been answered. There always will be some things left that haven't been explained. I don't regard that as a weakness of a theory.
You know, the theory for which I'm responsible right now has left quite a number of things unexplained. There are a number of experimental results, which from the point of view of my own work, have so far defeated any rational explanation. I would rather take umbrage if anyone said that was a weakness in the theory. It just takes a long time to explain everything. And I feel that the weaknesses that are being presented to you are . . . -- guessing from my previous experience -- being presented to you disingenuously in a way that would not occur with other theories as a means of weakening [and] engendering a distrust of the theory of evolution because of its supposed religious implications. I'm sure that they haven't testified about their desire to preserve religion, but I suspect they're not being entirely open about that.