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
Yes indeed, and they are evidence the Builder exceeds man to a great degree in many capacities.
I regret to be the one to have to inform you that the Hawaiian Islands are the result of natural processes, to wit the Pacific crustal plate moving via continental drift over a hot-spot in the Earth's mantle.
They weren't built.
Hey, rapid-fire double-posting is cheating!
Rade is now talking to himself. mumble mumble mumble
The "regulars" on these threads do take holidays, don't they?
hehehe
What's that?
Here's one of the early ones (2/11/2002) about textbook labels:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/804648/posts
It ran to 6836 posts...
Line forms to the rear......
;-)
I don't think that creationism was confined by my last post to the school of those who are young earth. I think I allowed that the word could be used otherwise, even though it isn't what is normally considered "creationist."
Now, they could believe that the designer is the easter bunny, but that isn't part of the model, so who cares?
Likewise, once more.....intuitively it makes sense that complex systems are designed rather than accidentally assembled. Intuition is not without error, but the mathematical model that says "accident is improbable" then launches the search in a direction other than accident/randomness/mechanistic.
Therefore, one has to look in the direction of non-random/non-accident/non-mechanistic.
Let me see....if random is south, then isn't purposeful other than south? Hmmmmm....
The math is correct; the assumptions are irrelevant. ID calculates the odds of a specifide outcome. But evolution deesn't specify outcomes in advance.
Evolution doesn't have a specified direction.
You call them "natural processes." Do "natural" processes happen without the assistance of certain laws? Do natural selection and random mutation account for the presence of those laws? If so, how? If not, what?
I call them "designed processes" not only because I believe the complexities and results involved to exceed my own capacities as an intelligent being, but also because I believe God is present and active in the universe He created.
Random is by definition, any direction.
Make that 6837 -- RA is time-travelling again.
And I keyed the date wrong, it was 12/11/2002...
Would you please give a sample of one or two of their assumptions so we can discuss how or whether they might be relevant? Do you believe mathematics and probabilities are inappropriate tools for providing evidence of intelligent design? What about characters of the alphabet arranged in patterns capable of communicating ideas? What about visible patterns communicating to the eyeballs? Are any of these things approprite for giving evidence of intelligence or design?
A lot of questions, I know. But a simple, short reply in your own words would be fine.
To bring you up to date, "random" is the direction we will NOT look in. Therefore, you cannot proceed in any direction that is "random."
By way of illustration, if we were to define "random" as south, then we must look in the direction of "not south."
LOL!
Evidently not.
The only purpose to bringing up Dawkins' political beliefs is to smear those people who support evolutionary biology must be lilly-livered Bush-having leftists. This is a cheap tactic of guilt by association.
Right, it's also bs and I'll tell you why. I accept evolution as a fact. Now why would I smear myself as a "lily-livered Bush hating leftist"?
Making assertions is easy, backing them up is a bit more difficult when the assertion is wrong. I don't smear groups of people. I do and will attack marxists, leftists and other assorted folks of that ilk when and where I find them.
And you're little fairy tale won't slow me down at all.
Your opinion, I don't happen to share it. And no, I'm not interested in checking peoples posts. I go by what I see on the various conservative threads concerning the judiciary, the constituion, the second amendment et al.
Antiguv and the General are frequent contributors. Prout is a good second amendment guy.
When ID advocates talk about specified complexity they are starting with an existing outcome and calulating the odds of getting from a past condition to the current condition. Such odds are always astronomical if the conditions involve complex systems.
Evolution isn't about predicting specific winners and losers, except in the sense that the house always wins. You can take that to the bank.
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