Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant (Religion bashing alert)

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

However at the time it was believed the evidence was considered strong that the earth was flat. Science had to change however when man learned different.

...just as belief in de novo creation of mankind had to change when man learned differently.

If scientist much more knowledgeable than me were so certain of evolution it would be scientific law not scientific theory.

With all due respect, this is complete nonsense. Laws and theories are two different things in science. Theories never get "promoted" to laws. The fact that something is a theory and not a law says absolutely nothing about the degree of confidence in it.

Here's a good overview of the distinction (from http://evolution.mbdojo.com/theory.html):

But it's "JUST a THEORY"
Version 1.0
Copyright 1999 by Ken Harding
[last update August 24, 1999]

This is such a common complaint about evolution that it deserves a page of it's own. This comment is born out of misuse of the word theory. People who make statements like: "But it's only a theory; it's not a scientific law," or "It's a theory, not a fact," don't really know the meanings of the words their using.
Theory does not mean guess, or hunch, or hypothesis. A theory does not change into a scientific law with the accumulation of new or better evidence. A theory will always be a theory, a law will always be a law. A theory will never become a law, and a law never was a theory.
The following definitions, based on information from the National Academy of Sciences, should help anyone understand why evolution is not "just a theory."
A scientific law is a description of an observed phenomenon. Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion are a good example. Those laws describe the motions of planets. But they do not explain why they are that way. If all scientists ever did was to formulate scientific laws, then the universe would be very well-described, but still unexplained and very mysterious.
A theory is a scientific explanation of an observed phenomenon. Unlike laws, theories actually explain why things are the way they are. Theories are what science is for. If, then, a theory is a scientific explanation of a natural phenomena, ask yourself this: "What part of that definition excludes a theory from being a fact?" The answer is nothing! There is no reason a theory cannot be an actual fact as well.
For example, there is the phenomenon of gravity, which you can feel. It is a fact that you can feel it, and that bodies caught in a gravitational field will fall towards the center. Then there is the theory of gravity, which explains the phenomenon of gravity, based on observation, physical evidence and experiment. Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity replaced the less accurate gravity theory of Sir Isaac Newton, which was the first complete mathematical theory formulated which described a fundamental force.
There is the modern theory of evolution, neo-darwinism. It is a synthesis of many scientific fields (biology, population genetics, paleontology, embryology, geology, zoology, microbiology, botany, and more). It replaces darwinism, which replaced lamarckism, which replaced the hypotheses of Erasmus Darwin (Charles' grandfather), which expanded the ideas of Georges de Buffon, which in turn expanded upon the classification of Karl von Linne. (see also: Darwin's Precursors and Influences)
So there is the theory of evolution. Then there is the FACT of evolution. Species change-- there is variation within one kind of animal. There is a predictable range of genetic variation in a species, as well as an expected rate of random mutations. Creationists readily admit that a "kind" (an ambiguous, non-scientific term) can develop into different species (i.e. a dog "kind" can evolve into wolves, coyotes, foxes, and all types of domestic dogs) but they insist that it must stop there. They never give any reason for this fabricated limitation-- they just deny that it can happen. They just can't accept macroevolution, because it contradicts the "truth" of their dogma. But in reality, there is no limit to the degree that a species can change. Given enough time, a fish-like species can evolve into a amphibian-like species, an amphibian-like species can evolve into a reptilian-like species, a reptilian-like species can evolve into a mammalian-like species, and an ape-like species can evolve into the modern human species.
The process (simply stated) involves the genetic potential of many different types of individuals within a species, the birth of a great many individual organisms, and the deaths of those individuals whose characteristics are not as well suited to the total environment as other individuals of the same species. The deaths of these less well suited individuals allows for the increased reproduction of the better suited ones, which initiates a shift in the appearance and function of the species. Without limitation. There is more genetic stuff to it than that, but that is basically how it works.
Yes, evolution is a fact, as real as gravity. The fact that all species alive today have descended from a common ancestor can be denied, but not refuted. We know it happens because we can observe it directly in short-lived species, and for longer lived species there is genetic and fossil evidence that is unambiguous. There is no other scientific explanation for the diversity of living species. Evolution is a very well established scientific concept with a massive amount of physical evidence for support. It is not a guess. Evolution is the basis of modern biology, and universities and laboratories across the world are engaged in research that explores evolution.
You don't have to 'believe' in evolution. You can trust that the thousands of scientists who study this phenomenon aren't morons, or Satanists. You can accept the general idea that life propagates with modifications, and those modifications can lead to improved survival, and that as those modifications are passed over time, many modifications can lead to a species that looks very different from its predecessor. Is that so hard to accept?
I have no faith at all in evolution. (I also have no faith in algebra, chemistry or astronomy). Evolution either stands or falls by the strength of the evidence used to substantiate it. Evolutionary biology relies on factual data, physical evidence, molecular experimentation, and it goes hand in hand with geology.
Some people can say "Well, scientists weren't there... they don't know what happened. It's still faith." But that is mere blind objectionism, like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. There are real reasons behind the science of reconstructing the past. My favorite analogy is forensic science. A man can murder someone (with no witnesses), and scientists can reconstruct the scene with such accuracy as to pinpoint the guilty person-- with such accuracy as to cause that man to receive the death penalty. For example, most Americans are convinced of O.J. Simpson's guilt... even though no one was there to see him do it. The situation with evolution is much the same-- reconstructing the past through examination of the evidence. It's true that not every theory withstands the test of time and goes on to be considered a fact by nearly all of the scientific community, but evolution is one that has.
See also: Evolution is a Fact and a Theory
This is the statement from the National Academy of Science:

Is Evolution a fact or a theory?
The theory of evolution explains how life on earth has changed. In scientific terms, "theory" does not mean "guess" or "hunch" as it does in everyday usage. Scientific theories are explanations of natural phenomena built up logically from testable observations and hypotheses. Biological evolution is the best scientific explanation we have for the enormous range of observations about the living world. Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong.
Why isn't evolution called a law?
Laws are generalizations that describe phenomena, whereas theories explain phenomena. For example, the laws of thermodynamics describe what will happen under certain circumstances; thermodynamics theories explain why these events occur. Laws, like facts and theories, can change with better data. But theories do not develop into laws with the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the goal of science.

Speaking of creationist distortions, note how often the creationist websites and books use the "just a theory" or "hasn't been promoted to a law yet, so there" fallacies. The creationist writers either don't know any better (despite this being a very elementary scientific concept) or do know better and are misrepresenting the case -- and neither option inspires confidence.

Creationist sources are *very* poor places to try to "learn" about science of any sort. They fail to understand a lot of it, and misrepresent most of the rest.

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.