Posted on 05/25/2005 3:41:22 AM PDT by billorites
Science feeds on mystery. As my colleague Matt Ridley has put it: “Most scientists are bored by what they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on.” Science mines ignorance. Mystery — that which we don’t yet know; that which we don’t yet understand — is the mother lode that scientists seek out. Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a very different reason: it gives them something to do.
Admissions of ignorance and mystification are vital to good science. It is therefore galling, to say the least, when enemies of science turn those constructive admissions around and abuse them for political advantage. Worse, it threatens the enterprise of science itself. This is exactly the effect that creationism or “intelligent design theory” (ID) is having, especially because its propagandists are slick, superficially plausible and, above all, well financed. ID, by the way, is not a new form of creationism. It simply is creationism disguised, for political reasons, under a new name.
It isn’t even safe for a scientist to express temporary doubt as a rhetorical device before going on to dispel it.
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” You will find this sentence of Charles Darwin quoted again and again by creationists. They never quote what follows. Darwin immediately went on to confound his initial incredulity. Others have built on his foundation, and the eye is today a showpiece of the gradual, cumulative evolution of an almost perfect illusion of design. The relevant chapter of my Climbing Mount Improbable is called “The fortyfold Path to Enlightenment” in honour of the fact that, far from being difficult to evolve, the eye has evolved at least 40 times independently around the animal kingdom.
The distinguished Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin is widely quoted as saying that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed”. Again, this was a rhetorical preliminary to explaining how the powerful illusion of design actually comes about by natural selection. The isolated quotation strips out the implied emphasis on “appear to”, leaving exactly what a simple-mindedly pious audience — in Kansas, for instance — wants to hear.
The deceitful misquoting of scientists to suit an anti-scientific agenda ranks among the many unchristian habits of fundamentalist authors. But such Telling Lies for God (the book title of the splendidly pugnacious Australian geologist Ian Plimer) is not the most serious problem. There is a more important point to be made, and it goes right to the philosophical heart of creationism.
The standard methodology of creationists is to find some phenomenon in nature which Darwinism cannot readily explain. Darwin said: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Creationists mine ignorance and uncertainty in order to abuse his challenge. “Bet you can’t tell me how the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog evolved by slow gradual degrees?” If the scientist fails to give an immediate and comprehensive answer, a default conclusion is drawn: “Right, then, the alternative theory; ‘intelligent design’ wins by default.”
Notice the biased logic: if theory A fails in some particular, theory B must be right! Notice, too, how the creationist ploy undermines the scientist’s rejoicing in uncertainty. Today’s scientist in America dare not say: “Hm, interesting point. I wonder how the weasel frog’s ancestors did evolve their elbow joint. I’ll have to go to the university library and take a look.” No, the moment a scientist said something like that the default conclusion would become a headline in a creationist pamphlet: “Weasel frog could only have been designed by God.”
I once introduced a chapter on the so-called Cambrian Explosion with the words: “It is as though the fossils were planted there without any evolutionary history.” Again, this was a rhetorical overture, intended to whet the reader’s appetite for the explanation. Inevitably, my remark was gleefully quoted out of context. Creationists adore “gaps” in the fossil record.
Many evolutionary transitions are elegantly documented by more or less continuous series of changing intermediate fossils. Some are not, and these are the famous “gaps”. Michael Shermer has wittily pointed out that if a new fossil discovery neatly bisects a “gap”, the creationist will declare that there are now two gaps! Note yet again the use of a default. If there are no fossils to document a postulated evolutionary transition, the assumption is that there was no evolutionary transition: God must have intervened.
The creationists’ fondness for “gaps” in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.
Richard Dawkins, FRS, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, at Oxford University. His latest book is The Ancestor’s Tale
I can't state that there was none since there are still flat-earthers around today)
I may not be the top card on the deck but I think we can put them in the uneducated masses category as well.
May I quote you that creationist websites that quote out of contex are lying? And the Freepers who quote the random anonymous websites?
Johnson, etc, may or may not quote out of context, but they engage in another form of lying. They republish refuted and worthless arguments as if 200 years of criticism of ID had never happened.
*applause*.
What "creationist scientists"? I've only seen publications attempting to tear down evolution using research done by scientists that support evolution.
Read the quote from ICR that I think PatrickHenry posted near the start of this thread. They admit outright they do no research, but merely search the scientific literature for snippets that support their prejudice.
They claim it is from lack of funding. But I think rather that there just isn't any scientific proof to be found of God, or that He created the universe.
You would have thought they could find something. Any affirmative evidence whatever, to support their cause. But they've totally struck out. All they can do is criticize science, and offer no theory to replace evolution except "God did it".
"Evolution is science, and is based on "objective study of verifiable phenomena""
No, its not. Evolution is a theory of how organisms develop which postulates that one species can transform into another. Evolutionary scientists look for scientific data which seem to support their theory.
OTOH creationists look for scientific data which seem to support their theory - i.e. that all species were created as they are and that one species does not develop or arise from another one.
Because followers of both camps have an a priori commitment to their respective theories, both are guilty of ignoring data which conflict with their theories and both will interpret data in a manner which supports their theories.
It is the accumulation of the data which is the science, and it is the interpretation of the data which is theoretical. Because both theories relate to events that either happened in the distant past and/or take place over such extended spans of time that they are not observable, then they are both destined to be forever relegated to the realm of theory as opposed to fact.
"Maybe He got it right the first time. If He's supposed to be all-powerful, I'd allow for that"
vs.
"it was very good"
didn't seem that big of a strech, a little attempt at humor that failed. oh well.
Please do not feed the troll. It adds nothing to the discussion, and adds quite a few red herrings.
Quote this: it is a common practice on FR, sadly, to quote from facts-challenged websites routinely.
Particularly on anything having to do with religion and history.
Evolution critics are far from the only or most prominent offenders in this regard.
Johnson, etc, may or may not quote out of context, but they engage in another form of lying. They republish refuted and worthless arguments as if 200 years of criticism of ID had never happened.
I don't think that republishing arguments that you do not believe to have been refuted is "lying" by any stretch of the word.
You seem to have a very narrow view of science. According to your view, the laws of themodynamics are not science. After all, they rely on interpretation and not accumulation of data. Or do you honestly believe that it is possible to observe temperature or heat without making interpretations? All you can observe without interpretation is that the liquid level rises in the tube you claim to be using to measure the temperature. It is interpretation to say that there's some property called temperature that results in the rise of the liquid. Similarly, it's interpretation to say that there's some type of energy that is transferred from hot to cold bodies which we call heat. All you can observe without interpretation is that if you hold a long, liquid filled tube against a hot body, the liquid level rises and if you hold it against a cold body the liquid level falls. If you allow the two bodies to contact each other, then put the tube against them, the liquid level will be intermediate between the originally observed levels. Anything else is interpretation, and hence not science according to your view.
For that matter, where is the direct observation of God occurred?
My post at #6 still stands...good luck with your beliefs. Shalom
Oh... missed that.
You're imagining things.
The whole book is allegorical. It speaks of Christ's bride: The Church.
LOL!
Please supply us with the date, the time, the place, which species was involved, and which species it became.
This would be great information to have.
If you have observed evolution, then you'd be right up there with the salk vaccine and the cure for AIDS. When will you make your findings available?
Why go through a six-day process to create man, when He could have done so instantly? Last I checked the Bible says that God created man from the dust of the earth. Why did God create man from dust? Presumably the dust is unnecessary, so why not just poof man out of thin air? Why does the idea that man was created from other life forms make a mockery of Jesus' sacrifice any more than the idea that man came from dust? Is dust so much more noble than other life forms? As far as the rest of your objections to evolution go, they hold no water as evolution isn't concerned with any of these religious ideas. Isn't it possible for God to have created man by the process of evolution, then man sinned and sin entered the world. Why is the origin of man's physical body at all important for any theological belief?
I live 50 miles from the Kansas state line. I can say what I like about Kansans; it's a right enshrined in the Nebraska state constitution. I think he's being too kind to Kansans in calling them simple-minded and pious; I'd say the ones who promote ID are also pig-ignorant, and resentful of people whose view of the Universe doesn't depend on what looks like an increasingly unlikely creation myth.
Gee, someone thinks I initially addressed you rather than the other way around. He must be related to Capt Ahab and also have a pegleg.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.