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
That is true. I think it will take just one brave soul to nail a new thesis to the wall. For it should be apparent to all now, that when you kill or silence one rebel, two other rebels learn a lesson.
Well, then, the question must arise, who translated the text. Agendas are everywhere. Were the translators christian, or Jewish, Islamic or athiest? It would help to know. The Dead Sea scrolls are under the control of one group of people, who release very little of what they know. You have to be wondering why.
Given a.) the filter of your own reason, b.) your own selectivity as to which propositions to accept or reject, c.) the similar assumptions made by the authors whom you've read, d.) those authors' own filters and assumptions, and e.) a general lack of testimony regarding the formation of the canon, I'd say there is some wiggle room.
I would be hesitant to conclude or assert that the Apostle Paul's experience with the risen Christ is adequately described as a "3 year-old" vision. Direct revelation (as it has been reported throughout church history), for good reason, is not only selective but also multitudinal in form. The Apostle Paul would probably be the first to join you in questioning why he, of all people, should be counted worthy to have "so much real estate" where the Scriptures are concerned.
Methinks they've run across evidence speaking against the divinity of Jesus. That alone would ruin any number of agendas if it leaked out.
I reckon there may be a few elementary science books out there that suggest as much. My daughter's Jr. High textbook does.
It's also obvious now how little intellectual content there is behind all the ballyhoo for ID.
Since my intellectual fulfillment is something only I can directly perceive, it seems I have an unfair advantage over you. I can proclaim myself fulfilled, and you'd have a hard time contradicting me. After all, if you said you were hungry, I'd be at a simillar disadvantage to prove you un-hungry.
I guess one could look at a representative sample of atheists, to see if they're showing behavior that would indicate intellectual unfulfillment. It brings to mind Weinberg's observation that most scientists care so little about religion, they don't even bother to call themselves atheists. That does not seem to indicate a yawning pit of intellectual angst. In contrast, I know many people who've drifted from religion to sect to denomination, out of dissatisfaction with each successive one.
What Dawkins meant, I think, was the evolution gives one a credible explanation for most of the world as we observe it. It gives us the 'how'. 'How?' is almost always a good question. Many people are looking for an answer to 'why?'; most atheists, I think, think the 'why' is meaningful only if there is a volition; and if you deny a deity, then there is no volition to puzzle about.
Likewise good to hear from you.
Ping to the immediately preceding post. (Sorry! read your request after I replied to BB)
Begs so many questions. If one applied the same standard of proof to the existence of God one uses for other purposes - UFOs, fabulous offers through the internet, etc., one would surely conclude there is no evidence for a deity. One might be on stronger ground is arguing there must be an 'uncaused cause', an origin; but it's implausible that the mere existence of a deity as origin can be used to distinguish between the validity of all the various systems of religion out there. As for obedience; even if a supreme being exists, one asks why the being would want a particular pattern of behavior from us, or why we should comply? As for the idea of a moral code which we are doomed to fail to satisfy, and therefore we need to throw ourselves on the mercy of the court, what a truly twisted way to look at the universe! Wouldn't a benign deity set realistic expectations for his underlings, as any good human manager would?
All of it is irrationality heaped upon irrationality. It's the kind of thing a small tribe adrift in a hostile and inexplicable world would dream up as a cosmology; come to think of it, it's the kind of cosmology such a tribe did dream up.
Actually, it was the Bush administration.
As to your other questions. Yes, the philosophies behind Newton's and Einstein's theories are very similar.
Really? A time-space invariant fixed-frame universe has about the same philosophical implications as a relativistic universe?--or a QM entangled universe?
For example, they are both fully deterministic.
Nothing has ever been demonstrated to be "fully deterministic", except in some formal mathematical studies whose domains of discourse are highly restricted. And even in this case, there is no lock-down guarantee implicit in the exercise, except by general agreement.
I think the general adequacy of Newton's theory is well explained and that is because it is not only not massively wrong, but is a very, very good approximation of reality within a wide range of conditions.
When it comes to the observable net behavior of the universe at large scale, there is nothing wronger, ever, than Newton's law. It is not in the least a good approximation of the universe, except for a tiny subset of that universe, located near you. Would you characterize this discussion we are having right here, in this paragraph, as more technical, or more philosophical in nature? Are we engaged in correcting a technical mis-understanding, or are we engaged in an ontological/epistemological discussion about the interpretation, limits, meaning, and implications of what we observe?
As I understand it, gravity plays a role, or at least must be taken into account, in atom traps so evidently even at that small scale it works the way we expect. Are you concerned that we don't have the equipment to measure the gravitational attraction between, say, two atoms?
So...I take it you adhere to one of the earlier models of the atom, wherein electrons are in smooth orbit around nuclei, in obedience to Newton's or Einstein's laws of motion?
I believe it is the Catholic Church that controls access to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Any scholars wanting access to study them has to be vetted by the Church.
Science can and should, IMHO, like mathematics, address the non-corporeal.
We are leaving now to go visit the graves, but I look forward to discussing this further with you this evening or tomorrow. Hugs, my friend!
Bless you, A-Girl.
When new instruments are invented, science uses them. Examples: the compass, the telescope, the microscope, etc. I know of not a single instance of science refusing to investigate when it had the tools for conducting an investigation. There are, unfortunately, historical (and current) examples of areas of research being closed to science by political or ecclesiastical authorities.
As I said back in post 1,779 (and everal times in the past): A scientist, using scientific methods, can't do deity-research in the lab -- or anywhere else. There's no DeoScope, no DeoMeter, no deity scales or tools of any kind for a scientist to work with. But if you can come up with a DeoScope, you may be certain that scientists will use it.
You and Betty are complaining about the peer review process, but I haven't seen you produce a paper that was rejected, along with the review. Did I miss something?
Sure would be, AlamoGirl! I really do wish I could post what I have, but it doesn't belong to me. In any case, the article is some 30 pages in length -- a tad long to post here. (The review itself is six teensy paragraphs.)
I have a feeling this work will be published in some form soon. When that happens, I can be more forthcoming. :^)
Nature has space to publish only 10% or so of the 170 papers submitted each week, hence its selection criteria are rigorous. Many submissions are declined without being sent for review.Sounds rough. They provide statistics for the years 1997 though 2003, and their acceptance rate varies from 10.74% in 1997 to only 8.9% in 2003 (in which year 9,581 papers were submitted, and only 853 were published). Source: Getting published in Nature.
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