College Hosts Society for Aristotelian Studies
Discusses Evolution, Intelligent Design, and Purpose in Nature
(Fall 2006 Newsletter)
The curriculum of Thomas Aquinas College has sometimes puzzled
those less familiar with it because though the degree granted by
the College is in liberal arts, the curriculum includes a great
deal of mathematics and modern sciences.
It was the conviction of the founders of the College that without
familiarity with the developments of post-renaissance thought, especially
in philosophy and the sciences, the modern world would be unintelligible
and, thus, the modern thinker, whether Catholic or not, would be
left adrift in a sea of apparently arbitrary and mutually contradictory
“systems.” One clue to understanding the multiplication
of universal philosophical systems is found in the nature of modern
science, both in its wonderful successes and in its peculiar and
little-noted weaknesses. Success has tended to make modern science
the standard by which all other disciplines and claims are judged.
This fact, combined with the necessarily dialectical character of
the development of modern science, has had the effect of replacing
the solid and certain grasp of reality offered by traditional natural
philosophy with scientific “models,” the evidence for
which is not their conformity with an evidence apparent to all,
but rather their ability to predict phenomena, after the fashion
of Ptolemaic astronomy. By giving its students an understanding
of modern science and its methods, the College hopes to help them
see what is good in modern thought and to give them the tools to
approach intelligently the perennial philosophy so often promoted
by the Church.
In keeping with this goal, the College hosted a meeting of the
Society for Aristotelian Studies on June 6-7. The Society, founded
in 1974, is a scholarly association of professors, students, and
others interested in the understanding of traditional Aristotelian
philosophy. Founding President Warren Murray has many associations
with the College, having participated in its lecture series and
directed the doctoral theses of several graduates at Université
Laval in Québec City, Canada, from which university he is
now retired.
The theme of this year’s meeting, evolution, was particularly
appropriate. It is no secret that the theory of evolution has had
a great impact on modern thought and mores, and it poses a challenge,
at least in some of its incarnations, to the perennial philosophy
and to theology.
Four invited speakers addressed questions of fundamental importance
in evaluating the challenge of evolutionary theory. Mark Berquist,
a founder and tutor at the College, gave a detailed explanation
of the arguments for finality in nature from Aristotle’s Physics.
These arguments, he suggested, provide a context for the evaluation
of the many claims made in the name of evolution. In the light of
Aristotle’s arguments, we can see that sheer mindless evolution
is not a real possibility, he said, though there may be room for
an evolutionary theory which admits of finality, or purpose, in
nature.
Whether such a theory is tenable given the facts of biological
reproduction was a question addressed by tutor and alumnus Thomas
Kaiser (’75), who holds a Ph.D. in biology from U.C.L.A. Dr.
Kaiser concluded that the cellular mechanisms of reproduction could
not alone explain macro-evolution, i.e., that a further cause is
needed to explain how a lower species could beget a higher.
The next speaker, Dr. Anthony Andres (’87), another alumnus
of Thomas Aquinas College and a professor of philosophy at Christendom
College, analyzed the merits of arguments for Intelligent Design
Theory, especially as exemplified in Michael Behe’s bestseller,
Darwin’s Black Box. Dr. Andres argued that, while such
arguments are powerful dialectical responses to atheistic evolutionary
theory, they are still too much attached to the mechanical scientific
models to constitute a fundamentally new approach to biology.
Finally, the President of the Society, Warren Murray, presented
an overview of current evolutionary theory and questions, incorporating
into his talk many of the themes addressed by others.
Many faculty of the College were in attendance at the conference,
which occurred during a break in the regular Tutor Development Program
which takes place in the early weeks of summer. Lively discussions
after the talks and over lunch gave the participants opportunities
to deepen further their grasps of the natures of scientific endeavor,
evolutionary theory, natural philosophy, and of the relations among
them.
The College believes that the collaboration with the Society for
Aristotelian Studies will bear fruit in the teaching of its own
curriculum, especially in Freshman Laboratory, a large part of which
is concerned with making a good beginning in biology as well as
natural science and philosophy in general, and in Senior Seminar,
in which the original work of Darwin, The Origin of Species,
is read. In that light, the College would like to extend its thanks
to the Society for organizing the conference.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Fall 2006
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