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Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant (Religion bashing alert)
Times Online UK ^ | May 21, 2005 | Richard Dawkins

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: biblethumpers; cary; creation; crevolist; dawkins; evolution; excellentessay; funnyresponses; hahahahahahaha; liberalgarbage; phenryjerkalert; smegheads
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To: js1138; betty boop
Thank you for your reply!

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?

I do not have one to produce but perhaps betty boop will have one in the future. She is under an obligation of non-disclosure.

1,941 posted on 05/30/2005 12:42:02 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: betty boop
I have a feeling this work will be published in some form soon. When that happens, I can be more forthcoming. :^)

I'm hoping it will be very soon! Thank you so much for all of your insights, my dear sister in Christ.

1,942 posted on 05/30/2005 12:43:31 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: PatrickHenry
Thanks for the link on Nature's peer-review!
1,943 posted on 05/30/2005 12:44:26 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: js1138; AntiGuv; betty boop
Thank you for your question!

You will pardon me if I ask again for some evidence of collective consciousness.

No problem, though I'm sure we'll get into it much greater detail as we pursue the definitions with AntiGuv. Here's some to get you started:

Princeton Engineering Anamolies Research

Rupert Sheldrake investigations (biology)

The Science of Collective Consciousness


1,944 posted on 05/30/2005 12:59:14 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Fester Chugabrew
The key to satisfaction in the pursuit of education is the allowance of free thought and free expression, with each observer having the right and capacity to accept or reject whatever propositions are made to reason as a result of having evidence. A person can reject the proposition that 1 + 1 = 2, but he should not expect a vocation as banker. (A liberal Democrat, perhaps, but not a banker.)

LOLOLOL! Excellent example. I agree that it is much more important to expose the students to all kinds of thinking and help them to develop methods for drawing their own conclusions.

Thank you so much for your post!

1,945 posted on 05/30/2005 1:03:50 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: betty boop
Seems to me the truly great questions of human life are eternally revisited by the human mind. The history of human culture down the ages testifies to the validity of this observation. For when you think about it, the earliest formulation of atomic theory came about in the ancient world of the pre-Socratic Greeks, with Democritus and Leucippus. The first formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics also occurred in this era, courtesy of Heraclitus. That man has continually revisited such questions is unavoidable, for they are great "open" questions. Trying to shoehorn their answers into narrow doctrinal forms strikes me as an exercise in futility from the get-go, for the simple reason that doctrinal reduction implies that such questions are "closed."

So very true! Thank you so much for your insights!

1,946 posted on 05/30/2005 1:06:47 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Fester Chugabrew; betty boop
Thank you for your excellent post!

The physical and the spiritual are no more meant to be separated from one another by "science" than they were meant to be separated by God when he created man, placed him in a garden, and walked with him.

Indeed, we are suffering from the false Cartesian split which science has accepted as a paradigm, i.e. scientific materialism.

This separation we endure for a short time - maybe 100 years max per person. Looking forward to bellying up to the bar with Matt, the IRS agent, for a little chat before sitting down with Methuselah to hear him out on how Noah behaved himself at age 205. We're in for a fine party, thanks be to Christ Jesus.

Indeed. I'm very much looking forward to it as well.

1,947 posted on 05/30/2005 1:13:33 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: betty boop
Thank you so much for the further explanation of how the chaos issue was addressed in the subject article! Again, thank you for your insights!
1,948 posted on 05/30/2005 1:16:01 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
Conversely, I find evolution to be completely opposite of cosmology in that there are many theories of cosmology which accept the evidence but have alternative explanations for the gaps and big picture --- whereas evolution is taken as a paradigm which does not allow alternative explanations for the gaps or the big picture.

It's not, as the ID advocates claim, a case of narrow-minded intolerance for alternatives. Alternative explanations for the proliferation of life on earth (or for any other natural phenomenon) are allowed, provided -- as in your example of cosmology, or any other science -- they can fit the existing evidence. And provided further, as with any scientific hypothesis, such an alternative explanation leads to some kind of prediction that would distinguish it from the current theory. (As the cosmic background radiation did in the days when Steady State was a competing theory.)

As it is, given the chronological fossil record, and then the amazingly consistent picture that the DNA evidence provides, it's been rather difficult (an understatement) to take the immensity of that evidence and rearrange it into any coherent scenario other than the one that evolution provides. It's true that where gaps still remain in the record (and I assume there will always be some gaps) one can imaginatively insert any desired causal agent. But does such a conjecture lead to any testable observations? So far, the ID camp has failed to come up with anything -- thus the "intolerance" for what is rightly seen as an unscientific proposal.

With an equal dose of imagination, I could assert that the hemisphere of a planet that faces away from us has a big smiley face on it, which always moves out of sight when the planet rotates that side toward us. I can make such a claim because there's aways a "gap" in our observational ability where my smiley face may exist. But to me, that's not much of an alternative theory.

1,949 posted on 05/30/2005 1:38:59 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: AntiGuv; PatrickHenry; js1138; betty boop; xzins; Doctor Stochastic; HiTech RedNeck
Thanks to all of you for your contributions to this definition effort!

Intelligent Design: A hypothesis that given features of life v non-life are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.

The above latest revision is fine with me. As several have observed (paraphrased) "the devil is in the details" - or more specifically the words: life v non-life, intelligence, causation, undirected v directed.

Many seem to be more concerned about where this will end than the structure itself. Personally, I doubt if any of the correspondents will have a complete change of mind but the effort should help all of us communicate better in the future.

Shall we now define the above words used in the definition or move to the definition of panspermia/cosmic ancestry and collective consciousness?

I'll be offline again for several hours (was up until 4:30 a.m. and need a nap) - but I'll be glad to engage the next step when I return!

1,950 posted on 05/30/2005 2:09:58 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: PatrickHenry
Especially for you, I've made a sound snippet with your honey-bunny, Kathy Martin, where she admits not to have read the proposed Kansas science standard draft.

30 seconds of pure Kathy Martin (119kb MP3)


1,951 posted on 05/30/2005 2:12:47 PM PDT by anguish (while science catches up.... mysticism!)
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To: PatrickHenry
Thank you so much for your reply! I do want to return to it again this evening because I'm so tired I'm about to keel over and don't want to give it only a cursory review. One quickie though: neither the fossil record nor geologic dating are in dispute by any intelligent design hypothesis known to me.

Catch you later!

1,952 posted on 05/30/2005 2:15:42 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: AntiGuv

Sort of like attributing intelligence to the construction of the Oklo nuclear reactor.


1,953 posted on 05/30/2005 2:17:20 PM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: anguish
Lovely voice!
1,954 posted on 05/30/2005 2:19:52 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: PatrickHenry
Lovely voice!
LOL! Indeed, but I got a bit disappointed when the audience's groans (as reported by the press) weren't that audible (due to the nature of the recording) during her remarkable confession.
1,955 posted on 05/30/2005 2:28:59 PM PDT by anguish (while science catches up.... mysticism!)
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To: b_sharp
Sorry for the delayed response. I've had a hard time lately finding time to spend on the forums

Hey, no problem, when the weather changes I move from FR to the golf course, the beach and bike rides with my grandkids.

My beef was with your poor logic in this particular case. The argument you used can be expressed as a categorical syllogism with propositions of type 'a'. When expressed this way it shows clearly that you have formed an example of the fallacy of undistributed middle.

Whatever.

All Marxists are atheists who want to ban religion

Here you've made an unwarranted aaumption. Not all Marxists are atheists and not all atheists are Marxists. But Karl Marx viewed religion as something that should be banned. So does Dawkins and in that way Dawkins is marxist.

Dawkins is an atheist who wants to ban religion

To recap, it is my opinuion that Dawkins would ban religion if he were King.

Therefore Dawkins is a Marxist.

Not my view. My view is that Dakins view on religion is marxist in that he would ban it if he could.

Let's try this:

Did Karl Marx advocate for the abolition of religion?

Do you think Richard Dawkins would abolish religion if he could?

I will use the term strong atheist to describe those atheists that would like to get rid of all religion.

Why? Why not simply use the term bigot?

If you meant that Dawkins' religious views are like those of Marxists then you are right, but if you meant that Dawkins is a Marxist, your argument fails to show it.

I said what I meant. Dawkins' views on religion are marxist. Nobody on this thread has demonstrated otherwise while I have demonstrated exactly what I claimed.

BTW whether Dawkins is a Marxist or not has no bearing on the validity of his views of biology.

Dawkins writes on relgion and politics often. He doesn't get a 'No criticism because he is a scientist card'.

1,956 posted on 05/30/2005 3:51:46 PM PDT by jwalsh07
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To: PatrickHenry
Wow; she's as brilliant as she is beautiful! Who'd have guessed?

I'm smitten....

1,957 posted on 05/30/2005 4:21:12 PM PDT by longshadow
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To: AntiGuv

I meant random.

As I remember the theory, survival of the fittest only applies after the advent of some random mutation based change.

Given that understanding, I'm certain I meant random. That's not to say you won't argue with my understanding, but is the understanding that I have.


1,958 posted on 05/30/2005 4:24:37 PM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It!)
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To: xzins

You didn't say "random mutation" before; you said "random natural selection".....


1,959 posted on 05/30/2005 4:28:18 PM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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To: xzins

However, that clarifies your meaning so that I can frame my response in more detail. I've been feeling really ill for about an hour though, so I'm gonna go lie down. =(

If I recover, I'll be back!


1,960 posted on 05/30/2005 4:35:11 PM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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