The Whole Question of Metaphysics

On February 11-16, 1993, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) met in Boston for its 159th National Meeting. While several sessions addressed topics of great interest, one in particular — "The New Anti-evolutionism" — focused on issues which have long been featured in OR publications and correspondence.¹ This report concentrates on that section.

Transcript of Michael Ruse's 1993 Speech to the AAAS
(transcript added 5.98)

The Case of the Missing Speaker

Michael Ruse, a philosopher and biology historian at the University of Guelph in Ontario, was probably the best-known speaker featured at the session, "The New Anti-evolutionism." As session organizer Eugenie Scott remarked before Ruse spoke, "He is almost a person who needs no introduction in this context." Yet a recent article describing the session in the London Times Higher Education Supplement omits Ruse entirely.² Although the Times provides the identities and views of all the other speakers in some detail, they make no mention — even in passing — of Ruse nor his talk.

Why the glaring omission? Was Ruse's talk so commonplace or forgettable that it warranted no mention? Hardly: indeed, the opposite is the case. Ruse is often controversial, but he is rarely boring, and his talk entitled "Nonliteralist anti-evolution as in the case of Phillip Johnson" was true to form; it was (for this correspondent) easily the most memorable and surprising of the meeting. Thus I speculate that Ruse's conspicuous absence from the Times article may be due to a certain uneasiness about his main point, which, Ruse argued (and I agree) "is an important one."

This eyewitness report may help to repair the Times complete neglect of Professor Ruse. Let's begin by reviewing the other speakers' remarks.