This interview with Glenn Morton was conducted in June 2005 by Tristan Abbey. Mr. Morton is geophysicist with a long history of involvement in the controversy surrounding creationism, evolution, and intelligent design. He has also written extensively on these issues. Interview questions are in bold ; responses are in standard text. The views expressed below do not necessarily reflect the views of IDURC

1. What is the extent of your involvement in the intelligent design/evolution controversy, and what makes you qualified to address these issues?

My involvement is extensive with 52 articles published in the area. What makes me qualified?  I am a geophysicist with much knowledge of the geological/paleontological structure of the earth, besides having done graduate work in philosophy.

2. You've stated that you “believe in design, but it is because of the evolutionary system, not in spite of it.” What do you mean by this?

Conventional ID looks for design in the wrong place. They, like the young-earthers look for design in biological systems rather than looking for evidence of design in the entire system (the universe) which appears designed to generate an evolutionary system.

Paley was partly wrong. When you find a watch in a field, you have a perfect right to ask who designed the watchmaking factory!

3. When you say you believe in evolution, how do you define it? What role do undirected causes play in your view of the history of life as it relates to an intelligent designer?

Evolution is the development of new life forms via modification, selection and descent. Our forebearers really were fish. If you are referring to chance, then the big discovery of nonlinear dynamics is that chance plus rules yields a kind of determinism. God can control chance by adding rules which govern what is done with those chance outputs.

4. Much has been made (some would say too much) about the “Wedge Strategy” of the Discovery Institute. As a self-professed conservative Christian, do you support the goal of defeating materialism?

Yes, see a couple of threads I was engaged in lately on Christianforums.com , “Fear of the Big bad Atheist” and “God of the Gaps.” I hate the fact that my other TEs [theistic evolutionists] seem to wither and go silent when faced with confronting atheists about utter naturalism.

5. In a recent letter to Nature , biologist Michael Lynch suggested that readers check out the journal of the American Scientific Affiliation in order to “get a good idea of what IDers would have the face of science look like.” How do you respond to this, and in general, what do you think about the ASA, which you have elsewhere described as a “spineless and pusillanimous organization”?

Lynch is wrong. ASA is not an ID organization—they wrote a letter to that effect, and I agree with them—the ASA is not an ID organization. But I think that is a bad thing. I think the ASA wants the early part of the Bible to be pure myth and no one will go to the mat to defend a pure mythology. Thus, when naturalism and materialism attack Christianity, the ASA is rather silent. The ID folks are not silent but they are shooting back with the wrong data—and they don't want to see that because they are stuck in a 19 th century anti-evolutionary approach to the problem.

Without design, Christian theology is in trouble. But if we advocate design in a part of nature which is totally indefensible, we just look stupid and we are ineffectual.

6. What sort of “wrong data” are you referring to with regards to ID?

Trying to use biology and biological systems as the evidence for design. Anyone who has studied genetic algorithms knows that you can design radios, and airplane landing gear as well as nuclear bombs with mutation and selection.  It is being done today. To claim that mutation and natural selection can't bring forth some incredible designs is to ignore the data we see in the design groups of many industries.

Indeed, we use such an algorithm in the oil industry .

7. Do you have any advice for aspiring young Christian scientists?

Be brutally honest with the implications of the data.  Don't explain bad data away with ad hoc metaphysical reasoning.