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
Actually there is no consensus on this. Now that there is evidence that things like eyes and lungs have evolved more than once, there is speculation that life (there is no consensus over whether the discussion should start with replicating molecules, viruses or cells) may have appeared several times or as much as 1,000,000's of times all over the universe, including in space. It seems like most of the folks arguing common ancestry now are the creationists and ID'ers.
It will be fun to tune in 100 or 200 years from now to see where this discussion has gone.
Properly understood, science is neutral regarding an "intelligent designer." Until there is a scientific way to test for one, the concept is outside science. If soneone devises a test that provides results that can be repeated by other researchers, things will change.
I've been around a while, and the longer I live the more apparent it becomes there as many "scientific" views of the universe as there are religions. Some believe in abiogenesis, some don't. Some believe in macroevolution, some don't. Some believe in a heliocentric world view, some believe in a geocentric world view.
There is hardly agreement as to "how much can be explained" let alone how to explain it. I count it as a good thing that God created a universe infinitely packed with phenomena to explore, and then placed man in the middle to check it out. Yes. It is good.
It used to be VERY good. Before long it will be better than ever.
Only an individual who lives in a vaccuum would suggest that science is unanimous in its understanding of the universe, but that person would have only his own reason and senses to contend with.
I did not imply unanimity in "what scientists believe we can explain," and I wouldn't expect it.
G'night, all. Gotta quite early.
Until you find your clone there is at least some evidence you are special. Not a bad start, despite your aunt.
As for the "creation of God," this is what I believe to be true, and why I am obligated to treat you with respect. The fact that my biological being will one day rest in the bosom of the earth will be ample evidence that I have not treated you, nor your family, nor my most bitter enemies, with the respect they deserve.
What science should bear out is common ancestry among "kinds" (Whatever THAT means!) but not common ancestry between them. I say "should" only because I consider the text of Genesis as presenting a reasonable account of origins.
What exactly is a "kind"? Are lions and tigers different kinds?
I think the fossil record needs to be brought together in a more organized way to make it available to people. Now that there are software applications for the genome, they could probably be used to organize the fossil record as well.
However, there still isn't a good way to define species beyond the ability to produce viable offspring. And how do you define species for organisms that reproduce asexually? Some viruses get different so fast it's hard to tell what they are. I was just introduced to Hepatitis G. I didn't know there was an F.
That is a subject of which I am ignorant. I'm sure there are several thousand scientists who would be happy to inform us both with all certainty what it is, but they probably won't agree.
What do you think? I'd tell you what I think, but my credibility and experience as an observer is exceedingly limited.
Ya betcha, Big Daddy! They don't call me "long"-shadow for nothing!
Does a set of the new Darwin Central drink coasters come free with each copy?
LOL!
150 years and counting.
evol evil
I do not know of any textbook that presents the fossil record in a manner that reflects the exact geological location and position of each one. It is as if, when we find a fossil, we must cram it into a preconceived notion as to where it belongs in terms of complexity; as if it is a given that life began, then gradually increased in complexity.
Don't get me started. People with an evolutionist mindset screw the evidence up into their own story instead of taking pains to document with any precision WHERE the item was found and EXACTLY what it looks like.
Besides that, they have been all too anxious to extrapolate structures based upon what they think happened instead of leaving it the hell alone so future generations can (hopefully) make sense of it. As history runs its course we will learn the evolutionists did more to screw up knowledge than an iceberg did to screw up the Titanic.
No. They are both "beasts of the field."
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