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
Intelligent Design: A hypothesiswhereinthat given features of life v non-life that are otherwise inexplicable are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
LOL!
Such a thing as a church probably won't work until Christ comes back to head it up. The way men carry on certainly projects to such a conclusion. But I don't have a crystal ball, or a definitive passage in the bible that declares it categorically impossible. There could be a reuniting followed by the most drastic falling away the world has ever seen. I don't know.
Such a thing as a [UNIVERSAL VISIBLE] church probably won't work until Christ comes back to head it up.
"according to which" :-)
What? Where did I say that?
well I cease my challenges in that vein (other apologists take up the torch well enough) but I do not cede the claim that they did. I just don't buy Science as Proof Of Everything That Matters (including that kind of matter).
And, so, for perhaps the fourth time, do most scientists. It would be bizarre beyond belief to hear coming out of a scientist's mouth that what science accepts as good explanations are "Everything that Matters".
Well, we can see from the existing churches that it will not work. If you have to have an office of the Inquisition, you have problems.
Yup.
I don't wish to imply anything against your faith. I just am trying to understand what is going on with all of them right now.
Good luck. It world-class baffles me.
Vladimir Horowitz's album "An Historic Return, Horowitz at Carnegie Hall" did get an Emmy.
There are organs in smaller churches that perform some of those kinds of duties. Going by such names as board of elders, ethics committee, ethics subcommittee, etc. It doesn't go snooping on its own accord but if someone reports misconduct then they go see if it's true and if so take action. The RCC is so bloomin' big that it could populate a town with people dedicated to this function. But it would be wise to lose "Inquisition" from its name. That has permanent bad press, and stating in retort that the pure church cannot err doesn't help (because we gotta deal with impure churches here on earth).
Thanks. I feel better.
Impure churches. That's the wheat mixed in with the tares. I wonder, are there holy churches? For real, not just claiming to be.
A French derived term (historie)
The odds of getting a bad apple would seem to dictate that if they exist, they are tiny (dozens at most). And it would be virtually impossible to tell.
The tares do often serve some kind of constructive function in the churches; God doesn't just have them there to frustrate the wheat. The proof is that he will not uproot them now "lest he hurt" the wheat.
Is it too late to suggest going back, and saying something like "certain biological features or processes"? That would give us something like this:
Intelligent Design: A hypothesisHere's a cleaned-up version:whereinthatgiven features of life v non-lifecertain biological features or processes that are otherwise inexplicable are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
Intelligent Design: A hypothesis that certain biological features or processes that are otherwise inexplicable are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
It appears then, that the responsibility for being holy, rests with the individual. You never know for sure, if the person sharing the pew with you, is for real or not. Even the priest. Even the bishop. Even the Pope. It looks like you are on your own. Then why have a church? Would it not be better just to believe on your own?
Either some major Catholic news has transpired that I missed, or I've promulgated a misunderstanding here. As far as I knew, sometime around 1875 the Inquisition was officially dropped, and the list of banned books and ideas transferred to another entity, to be followed soon by members the inquisition's staff. Said entity was headed up by Ratzinger before he became Pope.
In my humble opinion, this chain of affairs does not bode well for continuing amicable relations between the Church and the rest of the western catholic world--much of which is seething resentfully over the 12th century attitudes of the Vatican.
Ah. It's good to see the old virtues still obtain. And I still prefer "an hypothesis." But then, I'm an 'orrible evo.
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