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
implement: 1. A tool or instrument used in doing work; 3. A means of achieving an end.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
manual: 1. (a) Of or relating to the hands; (b) Done by, used by, or operated with the hands.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
What could possibly have made you think that your hands weren't included?
Wow.
I can't blame the Meeropols. If I were accused of treason, I'd hope my kids would spend their lives protesting my innocence. The ACLU is different. They're now trying to bring up the Rosenbergs w.r.t. Zacharias Moussaoi. Which, i suppose is appropriate; he's also guilty.
Actually the Meeropols were still in the closet while in college. I didn't know anything about Robert until years later when I saw their book advertised.
Well then check out the ancient babylonian myths.... :^)
BTW lots of creation myths from many cultures and eras have distinct parallels with Genesis.
1. As I said, it was not a "test case" it was an exploration of the boundaries of your definiton.
2. If you re-read the definitions you quoted you will see that the phrase "manual implement" appears redundant if, in your usage, a manual implement can include just hands.
Redundant how? An implement can be nonmanual - e.g., divine. Therefore, the adjective is obviously required, therefore it is not even remotely redundant.
Try again.
Babylonian creation myth:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Resources/Ane/enumaA.html
Which is the same myth copied by much later by the Hebrews. No turtles at all.
Let us recap:
your post 1931:
"PS. If you can find me a manmade object that cannot be identified as such via evidence of the application of manual implements, or alternatively of a non-manmade object that evidences the application of manual implements, then I'll reconsider."
I suggested a clay figurine which would be manmade but without implements.
You then equated hands with "manual implements" and then suggested that an implement could be divine, requiring the use of "manual" to modify "implement".
My suggestion is that the terminology, as you are using it, could be confusing.
And my next boundaries question is how you would deal with a hand twined piece of fiber, say from a rotted piece of a a nettle or flax.
Making steel guitars and pipe organs "pedal instruments"?
If I have it right AntiGuv would consider feet themselves as pedal instruments.
instruments should have been implements. Caffeine time.
I didn't equate hands with "manual implements" - only an illiterate would do so, or think that I had done so. I said that hands are one of a number of "manual implements"..
When in doubt, look up the words, because I use words as they are properly defined unless I quite clearly state otherwise.
Anything that a hand has touched will have evidence of being touched by hand, unless it has been further modified, in which case it will evidence the further modification. If in doubt, go look up the word "forensics" and "DNA"..
I reject this inane, contrived notion that objects must be identified at a glance. If you're confused, pick it up and study it.
But really, the point of my reply was not to discuss ancient mythology. If you read it again, you might see that the point I raised could be just as easily satisfied by the iceberg example. Are you trying to change the subject?
Thanks for writing!
Try Iriquois and Papuan.
There is also a turtle involved in a Hind "churning of the sea" myth and soome other turtles in various meso-American tales.
I do not respond to the content of posts that use ad hominem arguments.
Should you wish to re-phrase you post I will reply.
I didn't use an ad hominem. <<<< That should be taken as a hint that the way many people use the term "ad hominem" to signify just any ole insult is a misuse of the phrase.
But if you don't take the time to check your references, people may assume that you didn't take the time to check the validity of the rest of your posts. Others may think that you are trying to pull a fast one (like tricking people into guessing whether Moses took two or seven animals of each kind on the Ark) by slipping an incorrect comment into an otherwise well thought out article.
You do have a bunch of self-appointed referees on FR though.
ad hominem: Richard Dawkins is a Marxist, therefore his views on evolution have no credibility.
not ad hominem: Richard Dawkins is a Marxist, therefore he's worthy of contempt.
from your post:
"I didn't equate hands with "manual implements" - only an illiterate would do so, or think that I had done so. I said that hands are one of a number of "manual implements".. "
That's ad hominem. You were trying to attack me, rather than my post.
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