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

[VadeRetro]

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.

Another fallacy that we're using a made-up name for on these threads: Retrospective Astonishment. PH's idea, I think.

[Fester Chugabrew]

When ID advocates talk about specified complexity they are starting with an existing outcome.

How can one practice science at all without "starting with an existing outcome?"

[js1138]

That is the only way to practice science. That is what science is.

[From many - one.]

"I don't think you realize the awesome powers you are trifling with. Entire armies couldn't foreclose on Darwin Central. You'd never make it ashore. Fortress Galapagos is impregnable!"

From below?

You owe another prime rent, however I will generously credit your post as 1 Riposte, so the penalties do not kick in yet.

[Gumlegs]

Hey, rapid-fire double-posting is cheating!

Sorry to have to inform you, but quite some time ago the rules committee decided that while multiple posting was bending the rules, it was not breaking them.

Better luck next time.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Retrospective Astonishment

a.k.a. "arguing from incredulity." Both concepts bring emotional baggage that should be held in check.

Does the fact that mathematical statistics, probabilities, and calculations may result in astronomical figures negate their usefulness as a tool for giving evidence of intelligence or design?

If you saw a perfect cube made of solid rock, would you think it to be scientifically unacceptable and inappropriate, i.e. irrelevent, to apply the disciplines of mathematics and probabilities in ascertaining whether the cube gives evidence of an intelligent agent or is a product of wholly unguided, "natural processes?"

Frankly, if I saw a perfect cube made of solid rock, I would believe God made the rock, and man shaped it. That is what I would predict as far as its history is concerned. Would my prediction be preposterous or unworthy of consideration because I failed to employ mathematics in the process? No. Would I be arguing from "Restrospective Astonishment?" Yes.

Quantum Physics is enough evidence for me to believe the elemental nature of that rock is held together by intelligent laws that act without my understanding or intimate knowledge. Personal experience and observation yields enough evidence to conclude the rock was most likely shaped by means of human, i.e. intelligent, means.

To be open minded I must allow for the possibility I am wrong on all counts, but I don't need judges and courts of law to tell me what I can be taught, or what I should believe. Certain dogmatic evolutionists aren't so sure. They employ school boards, judges, and courts as sacred guardians of their infallible truths.

[Ichneumon]

[No, they are the results of creationists making simplistic and faulty calculations based on their poor knowledge (and in many cases, completely misunderstanding) of evolutionary biology.]

Are you saying mathematic calculations and probabilities are inappropriate tools for giving evidence of intelligence or design?

Not at all, I'm saying that in my long experience, the creationists/IDers keep misusing them.

Can you provide a brief example of their "simplistic and faulty calculations" in your own words?

Sure.

Another example.

Feel free to provide a link to your own alleged "probability disproofs of evolution" (or whatever you care to call them) and I'll show you what's wrong with them.

[Fester Chugabrew]

That is the only way to practice science. That is what science is.

I think you misunderstood my question. I meant "existing outcomes" as the status quo en toto. Science must launch from a set of givens, i.e. "existing outcomes." Another way to look at it: science stands on the shoulders of previous results. The object of science is a physical universe that operates under consistent "existing outcomes" and yields matter capable of mathematical definition.

[Gumlegs]

Both concepts bring emotional baggage that should be held in check.

Do some reading at this site before you characterize what we're doing. Most of the terms have been around long enough for even you to accept them. (Try clicking on the link. It's to a site that explains logical fallacies, and has nothing to do with evolution).

Does the fact that mathematical statistics, probabilities, and calculations may result in astronomical figures negate their usefulness as a tool for giving evidence of intelligence or design?

No, it's that the mathematical statistics, paroabilities, and calculations are based on numbers that have no known relationship to the phenomena they're attempting to describe.

Here's an image of a man on the side of a mountain:

Intelligent design?

[PatrickHenry]

Retrospective Astonishment.

The best example of this is to shuffle a deck of cards, and then deal them out in their shuffled sequence. The odds against that particular sequence is 57! which is 4.05269195 × 10⁷⁶. That number is several orders of magnitude greater than the number of stars in the sky. In other words, the odds against that particular shuffle are truly astronomical. Yet there it is, lying on the table before you. A miracle? No. Impossible? No. It's "astonishing" only in retrospect.

What would be impossible, however, is to predict that sequence ahead of time. Virtually impossible.

The life on earth today can be regarded as one shuffle of the deck. Highly improbable. But here we are. If the universe were to go into rapid rewind and then go forward again, we'd probably end up with a different bunch of species on earth, just as a new shuffle of the deck would result in a different sequence of cards. The odds against any one sequence are immense. But you would end up with a sequence. Guaranteed.

[Right Wing Professor]

Do you believe mathematics and probabilities are inappropriate tools for providing evidence of intelligent design

Yes. And you understand this is for everyone else, not for you. I know you want to stay ignorant, and I want to let you.

Anyone who plays craps knows the odds of snake eyes are 1/36. So I show you a pair of aces, and ask you the odds of that happening. 1/36, you say. Wrong oh, I tell you, because I didn't tell you how many rolls I took to roll snake eyes. Oh well, tell me how many rolls you took, you say. Six, I say. Then you say, the odds of getting at least one pair of snake eyes in 6 rolls is 1/36 for getting them on the first roll, plus (35/36)*(1/36) for getting them on the second, plus (35/36)^2*(1/36) for getting them on the third, and so on. You whip out your programmable calculator and tell me that probability is 0.155. That's still wrong, I tell you.

Why?

Because what I did was throw the dice; then, if I got two aces, I kept them; if I got one, I kept it, and threw the other dice. I hung on to the ace I already had, to see if I could get another. And I kept doing that.

The probability of getting two aces this way (according to my spreadsheet calcs, which could be wrong, although they look OK) is actually 0.442, three times better than just rolling both dice.

There are two take-home lessons here. The first is you can't calculate a priori probabilities of a result unless you know the details of the process that led to the result. Just knowing how many throws is not enough.

The second and more important lesson is, you can greatly boost your success if you can get half-way and hang on to the partial success. And that's what happens in evolution. That's what having a genome lets us do. It lets us keep our partial successes, and try again (by mutation - another throw of the dice). The probability of creating a perfect myoglobin molecule in one shot from component amino acids is vanishingly small, But if you can synthesize some large number of other molecules each of which is maybe 1/100 as good as real myoglobin; not great, but good enough to let you survive and reproduce, you can pass on the result to the next generation, and throw the dice again, and eventually get it right.

And that's why Professor Dumbass at Baylor is full of it. Because he knows what I know, and he knows that calculating an a priori probability without knowing the details of the process impresses only the mathematically naive.

[AntiGuv]

This Antiguv fellow has an opinion about everything! Someone should just tell him to shut the heck up!

[js1138]

Science does not waste its time calculating the probability of things that have already happened. Science searches for the causes.

There is scarcely anything of any consequense that has not been attributed to the intervention of gods. Storms, earthquakes, diseases, crop failures, crop successes, happiness, unhappiness, fertility, infertility, islands rising from the sea -- all have been attributed to intervention.

Science is that form of inquiry that starts with the assumption on nonintervention, and seeks to find regular patterns of causes.

[Ichneumon]

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...

Yeah, but that was easier in the days before several of the more proflific creationist trolls/flamebaiters got banned. ;-)

[Fester Chugabrew]

Sure.

Hehe. That is far from a brief example, and I have no idea whether you are addressing one who presrents the proponents of ID. Be that as it may, I stopped and chuckled at your words, "'random assembly' could take place." If nothing else, you are a living, breathing, oxymoron.

[Gumlegs]

NASA has released these photos from Mars:

Is the Intelligent Designer a Muppets fan?

Then again, maybe the Intelligent Designer is fond of 1970s kitsch:

These could not possibly have happened by chance!

[js1138]

You know the rules against publishing falsified data.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Science does not waste its time calculating the probability of things that have already happened.

Should I gather then, that science has no business examining the geologic column and extrapolating from the evidence backward as to what might have happened to cause it's present condition?

[Right Wing Professor]

Frankly, if I saw a perfect cube made of solid rock, I would believe God made the rock, and man shaped it.

And you'd be wrong.

[furball4paws]

Seems to me we discussed this earlier. He fell off a year or two ago. Intelligent design?