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

Times Online UK ^ | May 21, 2005 | Richard Dawkins

[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

[Doctor Stochastic]

2 is a prime.

Yes, but it's the only even prime, and that's odd.

[Fester Chugabrew]

That is my point and I have achieved it many times.

It is something of a gamble to reward another individual for stating the obvious, namely that Fester Chugabrew is a dumbass, but I'll do it anyway:

Here's a cold one for you. And if you have some preference for a different elixer to imbibe, please make your wishes known. Your persistence and dedication toward those things you hold dearly as truth is noted. I only regret that the opportunity may never present itself to buy you a cold one in person.

You have always been an entertaining, if not slightly disruptive, presence in my life, and for that I owe you.

[donh]

Far be it from me to disallow human reason the capacity to observe, record, and interpret evidence of past events.

What? Than what in tarnation are you trying to communicate when you claim it's only science when directly observed by humans, while rattling on about the length of the longest human lifetime?

[Fester Chugabrew]

What is the mathematical theory at the heart of evolutionary biology?

You tell me. You're the one who thinks "laying eyes" on prime numbers is akin to observing a 4.5 billion year old earth.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Then what in tarnation are you trying to communicate when you claim it's only science when directly observed by humans, while rattling on about the length of the longest human lifetime?

Only that science by definition is limited to the first human observer(s). If science insists on hard evidence to make its conclusions, then it must insist that only the perceptions of human observers be admitted as evidence. Than means, quite frankly, that science is not as firm as it apparently believes itself to be.

[donh]

You tell me. You're the one who thinks "laying eyes" on prime numbers is akin to observing a 4.5 billion year old earth.

AKIN. Yes, both are "kin" because both are examples of theories confirmed by inductive reasoning about a large set of samples that have evinced insignificant countvervailing evidence on repeated samplings.

[donh]

Only that science by definition is limited to the first human observer(s). If science insists on hard evidence to make its conclusions, then it must insist that only the perceptions of human observers be admitted as evidence. Than means, quite frankly, that science is not as firm as it apparently believes itself to be.

So much for stellar astronomy.

[Reagan80]

"In the Beginning, God created..."

He set it all in motion...He does not centrally-plan each and every flap of butterfly wings on Earth. We, as imperfect Humans, fail repeatedly to live up to his expectations of us. Of course, all we need do is ask His forgiveness...

[edsheppa]

It goes through both slits simultaneously

Well, that's an interpretation of another theory altogether, although I think they say it that goes through one slit in half the multiverse and the other slit in the other half or that there's a probability amplitude whose shape is affected by the slits or that the particle goes through one slit but its pilot wave is affected by the slits or that it definitely goes through one slit or the other but we give up on free will for it to make sense.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Yes, both are "kin" because both are examples of theories confirmed by inductive reasoning about a large set of samples that have evinced insignificant countervailing evidence on repeated samplings.

Yes, but that is as far as it goes. Woe to the scientist who mingles numbers with the physical world, for he will soon discover that what is incapable of physical grasp must be applied to what the eyeballs see. This would be a great time to assert lack of intelligent design altogether, but why would an intelligent being want to do that?

[Fester Chugabrew]

Holy cats. I need to slug another one down and read that again.

[edsheppa]

What is the mathematical theory at the heart of evolutionary biology?

I'm not an expert on it, but I think it is referred to as the neo-Dawninian synthesis and was developed in the early 1900's. Fisher and Haldane are names that come to mind. It's a mathematics of inheritance, variation and natural selection on populations.

[Fester Chugabrew]

So much for stellar astronomy.

Not at all. It's just that so many assumptions ought be presented as such. It's that simple. Statements of absolute certainty are more limited than science typically admits. Did you not point out that the mathematical proposition of 1 + 1 = 2 required 80 pages to prove, and that even the proof was subject to correction?

The reputation of science does not suffer from admitting a lack of certitude, but it will suffer if it asserts certitude where there is none.

[donh]

Than means, quite frankly, that science is not as firm as it apparently believes itself to be.

It doesn't believe itself to be firm at all, as is self-evidence from its history. Takes pride in the lack, in fact--considers it essential.

[donh]

Well, that's an interpretation of another theory altogether, although I think they say it that goes through one slit in half the multiverse and the other slit in the other half or that there's a probability amplitude whose shape is affected by the slits or that the particle goes through one slit but its pilot wave is affected by the slits or that it definitely goes through one slit or the other but we give up on free will for it to make sense.

Oh, well, no philosophical implications here.

[donh]

It's that simple. Statements of absolute certainty are more limited than science typically admits.

Which is relevant to nothing, since science makes no claims with absolute certainty.

[donh]

I'm not an expert on it, but I think it is referred to as the neo-Dawninian synthesis and was developed in the early 1900's. Fisher and Haldane are names that come to mind. It's a mathematics of inheritance, variation and natural selection on populations.

So...there is a sensible, comprehensive mathematical statement of evolutionary theory, called, possibly Fisher-Haldane, but before Fisher-Haldane, there was no evolutionary biological science?

[donh]

Yes, both are "kin" because both are examples of theories confirmed by inductive reasoning about a large set of samples that have evinced insignificant countervailing evidence on repeated samplings.

Yes, but that is as far as it goes. Woe to the scientist who mingles numbers with the physical world, for he will soon discover that what is incapable of physical grasp must be applied to what the eyeballs see

What? Does what you just wrote here make sense even to you?

[betty boop]

...ignorance and a lack of vision.

Details please, balrog666.

IOW, of what does your "vision" consist?

BTW, if you're going to quote me in a post, i would appreciate being pinged.

[donh]

Only that science by definition is limited to the first human observer(s).

Science is not what YOU think it is. It is what scientists think it is. Amongst scientists there is no generally accepted definition of science that limits its concerns to things that have occured only in the lifespan of "the first human observer(s)".

But, if there were, it would most definitely eliminate nearly all of stellar astronomy. The light from no event that occured in the "lifespan of the first human observer(s)" in another galaxy will hit us before many millions of years have passed.