October 7, 2007

Debating man's origins
By GWENDOLYN DRISCOLL
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

FULLERTON – Peppered moths. Pocket mice. Galapagos finches.

To the uninitiated, they are merely moths, mice and birds.

To James Hofmann, they are building blocks in a great debate.

On a recent Monday, Hofmann, 59, flashed photographs of the creatures on a screen before about 40 Cal State Fullerton undergraduates.

All three animals changed dramatically in different settings and contexts, he says.

Pocket mice turned sand-colored in the desert, black on volcanic rock. Finches, depending on the climate, have enormous variation in the size of their beaks. Peppered moths' spotted wings almost disappear into the grainy bark of trees.

Moths, mice and finches are not proof of the notion of natural selection – the scientific belief that species change in response to their environment.

“This is a theory – it could be wrong or it could be right,” Hofmann tells the class.

The visual evidence, however, seemed to speak for itself.

Showing – not telling – is the point of “Evolution and Creation,” Hofmann's long-running seminar on one of science's hairiest debates: evolution vs. “intelligent design.”

The first theory – which says that all life evolved from a common ancestor – is the scientific equivalent of the Magna Carta, a guiding principle that undergirds mainstream debate about the origins of man.

The second theory, advanced by Christian academics and advocates, argues that life appears to have a purpose for which an intelligent creator – God – is the only possible explanation.

Hofmann makes no bones about where he falls.

“Intelligent design is a very good PR movement but not much else,” he says.

The lanky, shaggy-haired professor in Cal State Fullerton's department of liberal studies teaches the course because, he says, the debate is not going away, and – as an election year approaches – it may even be growing.

“Ninety-five percent of (my) students expect to become K-8 teachers,” he says. “And these issues come up with school boards pretty often.”

They came up in Hofmann's own childhood.

Growing up in Minnesota, he inherited both a scientific aptitude and creationist notions from his radiologist father.

Hofmann's father, a Catholic, believed in “young earth” creationism – the biblically literal idea that Earth is about 6,000 years old.

“He kind of went in a conservative direction,” Hofmann says.

Hofmann describes his father as a “dogmatic” man who did not encourage debate in the household. The elder Hofmann gifted his college-aged son with “Scientific Creationism,” by Henry Morris, considered by many to be the father of “creation science.”

“Maybe my questioning (of creationism) came from rebelling,” Hofmann says.

As his father's beliefs hardened, Hofmann's opinions were changing, softened by the mood of 1960s-era protest and experimentation. The shoulder-length blond hair Hofmann still sports and the Frank Zappa book on the shelf in his office at Cal State Fullerton are remnants of that time.

Hofmann pursued and bachelor's and master's degrees in physics and then dovetailed into a doctorate in the history and philosophy of science.

He was fascinated by the seemingly cyclical debates in American society about creationism and evolution, starting with the Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925 up to President George W. Bush's comment in 2005 that he would like to see “both sides” of the debate taught.

That comment revived a restive movement of evolution skeptics, says Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, a group that opposes intelligent design.

The result was a number of hard-fought efforts by creationist school boards and others to teach both creationism and evolution in secondary schools – what creationists call “teaching the controversy.”

“Americans love fairness,” Branch says. “The idea (by creationists) is that you appeal to these attitudes of openness and fairness, but you do this in the service of a very narrow religious viewpoint that doesn't have any scientific evidence backing it up.”

Intelligent-design proponents say they have peer-reviewed scientific research that challenges Darwinian notions about evolution.

“Scientists are typically intolerant toward ideas that threaten the reigning paradigm,” says Casey Luskin, a program officer for the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, a leading proponent of intelligent-design theories. (Orange County millionaire Howard Ahmanson is a leading donor.)

Hofmann's course syllabus refers students to extensive reading lists about multiple viewpoints – from “young” and “old earth” creationists, to “theistic evolution” believers, to intelligent design advocates.

His desk is littered with books about intelligent design, including “Of Pandas and People,” the intelligent-design secondary- school textbook that in 2005 became the focus of nationwide debate and litigation culminating in a U.S. District Court ruling that intelligent design was not a science.

“What's different (from other college classes on creationism) is that I don't present my class as a debunking course,” Hofmann says. “It's intended to give students access to information.”

Such consideration – for a topic that the National Science Teachers Association dismissed as “pseudoscience” in 2005 – has garnered Hofmann positive reviews on blogs and listserves utilized by other “creation science” instructors.

It also has earned him a place on a list of “debate dodgers” compiled by Joseph Mastropaolo, a creationist and former faculty member at Cal State Long Beach who has challenged evolutionary theorists like Hofmann to prove their case.

“I've been accused on the one hand of overselling creationism,” Hofmann says, “and on the other hand of (being too critical) That tells me I'm being fairly even-handed.”

Even-handed, but not neutral. Hofmann's belief is that laying evidence for both views side by side will exert a natural debunking effect.

“It can't help but do that,” he says. “Evolution science is pretty overwhelming.”