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
The ancient world is rife with stories of people chatting with gods and predicting the future (and having the prophesy come true). However, whereas you would dismiss such claims from another religion, you accept them in yours.
No. It is my position that when a man is condemned for his frontal attack on the Church, it should not be mis-interpreted as Church hatred for science. It was about politics, not science.
Shalom.
Such as there being no evidence in Egyptian writings that the Hebrews were ever enslaved, or that 10 plagues occurred?
The "sarcasm" tag got lost somehow. This is terrible news for the conservatives.
I responded to one such in post #97. It may be rare, but I don't spend much time on these threads.
Just off hand, I'd guess that your distaste for some particular thrust of rhetoric is probably not universally the same thing as "playing some vague debating game".
Good guess, but I'd have to disagree. I suppose you scored a point, though I don't really understand the rules.
Shalom.
Ping to self for later pingout.
One point the august author fails to mention is that there are many creationists who do not toe the standard "Biblical" line. Creationists or intelligent design people who recognize that the earth is millions of years old, but do not swallow Darwinist theory for a plethora of reasons.
Trying to promote evolution by dismantling "the earth is only 6,000 years old" and then patting oneself on the back is silliness.
"Forbidden Archeology - The Hidden History of the Human Race" by Michael Cremo is a good place to start.
Do you dispute the accuracy of Ichneumon's citations of the Galileo case in his #266? How do you not read that as a condemnation of science?
Why is it that believers almost always refer to "us" and "ours" instead of "me" and "mine"? Good evidence for some insecurity in their faith, I think.
Thank you Gummy. When you're around I know that I'll end a thread smiling.
That amounts to hatred of science.
You can't change that by focusing on Galileo's (correct and moral) defiance of church authority. Many other scientists of the day agreed with Galileo privately. Galileo was brave and honest putting his scientific opinion on paper. That's why everybody knows his name, nobody knows which of the corrupt midevil popes was on the other side.
Okay, so if speciation can be accomplished by nothing more than breeding, why can't it happen that way naturally?
It would cause unemployment among the angels, and their union won't allow it.
So you would agree that it's a crime (or at least misbehavior) to question church doctrine? Misbehavior punishable by imprisonment.
I'm wondering what the moral equivalence is between someone publishing a theory, and a church imprisoning a person for disagreeing with them.
How is this behaviour of the church different from the behavior of the Taliban?
<creationistLogic>All Marxists are atheists, therefore all atheists are Marxists</creationistLogic>
I don't care about the "total."
Of course you don't, because than you'd have to wrestle with the absurdity of this argument--you don't care to uncover this question because you know perfectly well that virtually all biologists are pursuaded by evolutionary theory. There is no vast controversy within the scientific community about the reliability of the theory of evolution, no matter how much confident-looking preening and strutting you do. That is a plain and obvious fact anyone can check out for themselves by going to any reputable university natural history department or biology department, and taking a poll of the scientists you find lurking there.
As a veteran of a thousand crevo wars, I can say we're well beyond that stage.
Ich is Ichneumon. However, ich bin nicht Ichneumon. Ich bin der Rechtsprofessor.
Danke fur das. Ich auch bin nicht Ich :)
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