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
His own body.
Yes, but isn't it a fact, that the bigger they grow, the more likely they are to collapse? Where have all the churches, so swelled with members, in the 1950's gone? Where are these mega-churches of today, headed for? They will break up and disappear, or some sects will remain. Corruption seems to be built in to them. And if that is so, then they must not have been founded on the true rock.
Truly not defeated, but does that mean they have to have a member still living on the earth? I think they're all waiting in heaven now.
Well, yes, Christ is greater and more perfect, yet we are one as well, especially if he indwells.
You raise an interesting subject that I've pondered, and again it centers on the type-churches in Revelation. One wonders if in addition to being types, if they also might be stages of a church....possible routes they might take??
Which ties into your concern that the flourishing bodies of yesteryear have seemed to collapse in our day, and that the flourishing of today might well repeat that process.....those stages.
The original definition from the discover.org website:
HiTechRedNeck, I am assured that the use of the word “given” as a substitute for “certain” does not limit the intelligent design hypothesis to current knowledge and conversely would require mention of at least some for any particular assertion of the intelligent design hypothesis.
PatrickHenry and AntiGuv, I’m going to fast forward through your discussion to your last suggested rewording:
Considerations such as form, geometry, mathematical structures, semiosis, autonomy, successful communication, complexity and intelligence are within the domain of intelligent design investigation – and the reference to “biological features or processes” might inadvertently limit the debate to bio/chemistry.
The omission of the word “best” in this discussion in combination with the phrase “that are otherwise inexplicable” puts the bar above that which is stated by the fellows at discovery.org. IOW, they are not claiming that there are not other explanations, but that the best explanation is by an intelligent cause. I think your last wording was getting much closer, PatrickHenry!
I suggest amending and revising your last definition as follows:
see my #1665 for possible ways to view...in addition to your perspective which also has merit. Thanks.
Like many terms in the bible there is room for multiple meanings of church. Body of believers. Gathering of Christians and non-Christians that either aren't evident or who are openly inquiring into the gospel. Many are called but not chosen. Called out = ekklesia. It might even be possible to escape the pollution of the world by knowing Jesus then get entangled again (wiser souls than I can debate whether that's an 'ypothetical).
Well, the letters to the churches in the book of revelation, is relevant today, for all the churches are the same, no matter where in time they exist. If the lamp is taken away from them, it is because they deserve it. The virgins who trim their lamps are advised to be somewhere else.
I'm not trying to wrench up the defining, but have you all previously agreed to what is meant by "intelligent." If so, can you ping me to it? Thanks.
Yes, Jesus speaks of that somewhere, sweeping out the house of demons, then they come back and are worse than before.
And somehow, the virgins who have no oil are excluded. A caution worth listening to.
I perceive two visions here about what Science is expected to do. One surveys the scene at each point in its inquiry and tries to make the most likely judgment about what's the case (to date, it's that I won't win the Powerball, unless I get a friend on the ball drawing team), the other takes an 'ypothesis and drills down to the bitter end before starting up with another (keep buying those Powerball tickets, I have an unbustable budget, and we'll see if I ever win before I die).
And yes, I expect we will need to define all the component concepts as well: intelligence, causation, life v non-life, undirected process.
According to the Inquisition.
Someone has to win this tug of war over the definition of what a Roman Catholic is, and if push came to shove the smart money would be on Rome. They're an authoritarian, highly hierarchical church, and have been so ever since mixing up with the Roman emperor for the first time. Surprise. not
The catholic church has also spewed out dissident sects to become other religions a fair number of times. I'm not going to be overly surpised if the next half-century sees this happening again.
The analogy goes so far, and then we can see no more. Were the unwatchful virgins called upon later for some other reason? The story doesn't go past the big event of the coming of the bridegroom, who states he never knew them. Wiser souls than I can debate such details. I know I would not want to miss the second coming even if other chances follow.
My idea in using the expression "features or processes that are otherwise inexplicable" seems (at least to me) to cover the issue of "best." If there's no natural explanation, then the ID hypothesis is the only explanation that's left to explore.
If we do what the Discovery Institute does, and phrase it so that although there may be natural causes, the ID explanation is (somehow) judged to be "best," then we may as well amend all scientific theories to say: "... but to some, ID is preferable." I regard that as a giant step backwards.
The historical changes of how we "do" science is a fascinating subject sometimes visited by betty boop on these threads. I'm hoping she'll add some of her wisdom here.
IMHO, the emphasis on scientific materialism has caused tunnel vision in the United States as compared to former Soviet countries and Asia.
I have heard that the entry of the wise virgins might only temporarily exclude the unwise. Others see the unwise as not possessed of a true faith; therefore, not really Christian to begin with.
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