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
But I confess, I skirted very close to the line! =)
"Festival of Beautiful as they are Brilliant Anti-Evos" placemarker
Thanks for the pointers, From many - one. However, I distinctly recall the myth in question has a middle Eastern (Fertile Crescent) origin. Of course, this is from my reading of several decades ago. My memory may be "off"; but this is the sort of story I just "naturally" remember.... Will try to find you a cite.
Well that is a comfort, Doc. But I still think you're trying to change the subject. :^)
PS. And if you must know, what I really committed in that post was a style-over-substance fallacy. I almost always respond to style-over-substance fallacies with equivalent fallacy, because they seriously annoy me.
I'm told by the highest authorities that turtles are unexplained by evolution. A creation story that explains the existence of turtles is therefor superior to evolution.
Thanks, I'd be interested.
:-)
Maybe they're unexplained by evolution because it's turtles all the way down?
Oh yeah, plenty of context. And again he does not say that we would ban religion. There are many harmful things I'd like stamped out too but I would not ban them. For example, I dare say 99% of FR posters would like to see leftwing media bias stamped out (as do I) but would not ban it.
"Qua religion, no—in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason."
- Ayn Rand
It doesn't matter what the man actually said.
All that matters is jwalsh07's opinion.
I remember it. I also seem to remember that diamond dropped the ball on round 2.
It depends entirely on the objects in question. And with respect to living organisms, I don't claim that any wild specimen was designed.
You don't say...
I've asked for a textbook source that documents exactly where the fossils have been found, along with their condition and exact position relative to the physical, geoloic column.
So NOW you're going to follow links? How convenient for you.
Every Fossil Ever Found
It is also a shame that the same people who publish their findings do not list from the get go what assmptions they've made in interpreting the evidence.
It's also a shame you can't do basic research before you post.
A better link than the one above: Paleontology Journals
Very funny. And to the point. By the way, what was the point?
Interesting take since Dawkins uses the analogy of the smallpox virus. Neither rational nor believable but interesting Ed.
Hey, sorry for my testiness earlier. I'm just in an overall bad mood and got slightly ticked off by your post for no apparent rhyme or reason!
To my knowledge Ayn Rand never advocated society preempting parents from exercising their first amendment rights.
Richard Dawkins: “Society, for no reason that I can discern, accepts that parents must have an automatic right to bring their children up with particular religious opinions and can withdraw them from say, biology classes that teach evolution.”
Also to my knowledge, Rand has never stated that religion should be stamped out like the smallpox virus.
Dawkins: Religion is a terrific meme. That's right. But that doesn't make it true and I care about what's true. Smallpox virus is a terrific virus. It does its job magnificently well. That doesn't mean that it's a good thing. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see it stamped out.
Am I wrong about that?
Thanks. :-}
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