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
All theories of science are philosophical ones. The theory of gravity most particularly not excepted--most particularly lately.
Shoot, if what you say about "most scientists" is correct, then "most individual scientists believe" would do. Enough to say hey, we aren't shutting the door on heaven, that has to be your choice.
Huh. Nearly an agreement in principle--who'd have thunk it?
HA! (quoting Chris Matthews). Seems right to me. :^)
So do you want to qualify evidence such that we might have an argument precisely about this matter??? How would we even begin to proceed???
(I shall be guided by you, should you wish to go further. Unless I see you taking me over a cliff, in which case I might protest.)
Good to see you, RWP. Thanks for writing!
That's tough to answer definitively. When the Inquisition was founded, the chief worry was, I guess, the Albigensian/ Cathar heresies, which had been a concern before the founding of the inquisition. So I suppose you could say that the Inquisition was the enforcement arm of the various Councels of the church that established catholic dogma between 300ad and 1100ad, and they are officially deputies of, and subservient to the Holy See. But I expect it would be pretty silly to maintain that the Inquisition wasn't generating policy behind the scenes.
At the risk of further expanding a thread beneath the name of Dawkins, I would suggest that a rapacious grasp for truth, no matter who might be the subject, deserves at least a hearing in the academic arena. We cannot cogitate upon any idea, no matter how absurd, until it is presented. That is why I believe, despite Dawkins' bent toward or killing religion, he deserves a place at the table; or under it. At least he should be heard.
Too bad he does not recognize this courtesy in return. Otherwise the observation regarding his carrot of mystery and stick of materialism speaks for itself.
You must have done some serious study on the history of canonical texts. Whatever statements you make in this regard I am inclined to regard as worth consideration. Is there a culminating idea WRT the subject at hand you are attempting to assert?
Where the topic of creationism vs. materialistic evolution is concerned it seems the text of Genesis 1 is a good point of reference. Every biblical text makes statements the hearer will evaluate one way or another, or, as often happens, disregard. After some years of familiarity with the canonical texts it is my belief that the Law of Gravity, for example, is an ongoing miracle, even though my reason and senses have been dulled to its effect and Source.
Thus, as an observer so far, I tend to lower the bar significantly where the supernatural is concerned. So much so, in fact, that a virgin birth, turning water in to wine, walking on water, rising from the dead, healing diseases, etc. is only slightly above the routine where the creation is concerned.
Are you thinking of the Zeno paradox or what?
var x = 1
for (var i = 0; i < 1000; ++i)
{
x = 1 + x;
x = 1 / x;
x = 7 * x;
x = x / 4;
}
WScript.Echo(x + 1 / 2);
Everyone but me.
"All theories of science are philosophical ones. The theory of gravity most particularly not excepted--most particularly lately."
The gravity discussion would be interesting to bring up as a case in point, if the problem were not too difficult to describe at a popular level well enough that when the students COULD do all the math they would not complain of being misled. Things are not always what they seem.
In a larger sense I was referring to extra-scientific philosophical claims that are made about Science (but for which Science cannot return the favor because the scope relation is asymmetrical). Something to the effect that many/most biological scientists individually view their work through a philosophical lens that allows for or affirms an active creation agent in a successive appearance of the various plants and animals that existed or exist now. And that some biological scientists are skeptical of the mainstream TOE position. But that the study at hand will propound no absolute doctrine about the matter. And with that word, a brief study of ID philosophy, followed by the TOE, commences. Science is viewed as a servant rather than a master.
Vied for members, perhaps, but there was no Grab-the-Leader Prize for winning that battle as would have been possible when the Roman emperor got involved. Pardon me if I am skeptical that somehow the "winner" (however defined) did a successful sweep of the world to rub out all the earlier records, sent hither and abroad, that did not *quite* match the "winning" doctrine. The gospel wasn't chained. It would be like trying to stuff toothpaste back into a tube.
you old square rooter
This statement is completely at variance with how science is done in the U.S. If it is what you think, you have no understanding at all how scientific organizations work. For one thing, peer-review is international. I review mostly articles from overseas (usually Europe or Asia, rather than the US). Likewise, most of my stuff gets reviewed overseas.
In short hand, that is the "randomness" pillar of evolution theory: random mutations - natural selection > species.
How does this statement even relate the the previous statment? "Randomness" is not a pillar, merely an obervation.
Please post some evidence (actual articles, the peer-reviews, the editor's replies, etc.) to show this is so. I'll be glad to pass your evidence to the publishers. You must have evidence though. Many well know kooks (Archimeded Plutonium, Albert Silvermann and James Harris on the Usenet, for example) also claim peer-review is a joke because their junk is rejected.
Only partially. All of Zeno's paradoxes stem from misapplication of measures, not necessarily from the incomensurability of ratios. Zeno's paradoxes are very subtle; correct explanations are not so easy to come by. There are several good books on the subject (and without looking, I'll guess several internet sites that explain Zeno.)
Oh garsh, me secret is revealed.
Such a comment, coming from one whose thought processes are the cognative equivalent of Boron Nitride, must be taken with a grain of Sodium Chloride.
We are a long, long way from eliminating mystery from the world. Even in as reductively complete a case as QM, there seems to be no end to the mystery. My personal favorite is the electron that can tell the orientation of a magnetic field even though it is excluded from the region of the field. Another cool one is the bomb detector that uses light to detect a light-activated bomb.
In fact, one can argue that mystery can never be eliminated entirely because every scientific theory must have axioms and undefined terms.
BYW, my feeling is that Dawkins doesn't have an agenda per se, merely an intense and irrational dislike for religion. One often sees the reciprocal dislike for irreligion on these threads.
Achilles?
Festival of Uranus placemarker
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.