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
Oh, I don't know, maybe trying to get the days work done, without spending an hour carefully analyzing and justifying every phrase you utter. You may take it as a given that when the average scientists says "the earth is 4.5 billion years old", that if pressed, he will pretty much say something along the lines I just demonstrated; few scientists are not aware that that number has migrated around quite a bit, even though it doesn't occur to them to explain the conditional, transitional nature of scientific theories to the audience, every time they open their mouths.
It is no shame to science that it carries varying degrees of certitude in the staements it makes, but it is a shame they maintain an air of certitude as if their statements are wholly matters of fact.
There is no more "air of certitude" in science than there is in welding or plumbing.
Dogmatic evolutionists exist, they have their convictions, and I am happy to hear them speak their convictions in the public arena. Far be it from me to accord them a sole voice.
Really? Can you point me to, say, a dozen examples of actual working scientists who are willing to say that evolutionary explanations cannot possibly be demonstrated to be wrong, or incomplete--ever? I don't know of any real scientists that would say such a thing. It would be a betrayal of the basic rules of science they learned at their daddy's knees.
From your post 2198
The point is, I do not dispute the formula. I dispute the argument that a calculated probability is "different" than that calculation. Buffon posed a question which is calculated. For a needle the same length as the separation of the parallel lines, the result is the value of 2/pi. Again, the summation can not be terminated, because if it is, the result is rational. That would be no different that stopping the dropping of needles and calculating the result. Buffon's question has a solution and it includes pi.
You say this like it's a Bad Thing. The alternative would be what? Embrace death?
No, and I would not expect to, but I could probably point to several dozen examples of actual working scientists who are willing to say that intelligent design cannot possibly demonstrated as worthy of discussion in a classroom setting, and who are willing to employ legistlatures and judges in their cause.
I had no idea all this time you were living in a flooded house and driving a jalopy.
I thank you, and the horse you rode in on.
I suspect it equals 10, usually, unless by "+" you mean something other than applying an add op code to a couple of CPU registers.
Always with the misleading rhetoric: I doubt that you can find such scientists, but I'll bet you can find plenty who will tell you that ID isn't worth discussing in a SCIENCE classroom--and that's because it isn't--it hasn't done the dogwork that makes other disciplines into sciences.
No, the point is that you made a claim which has been shown false but aren't man enough to admit it.
I agree, it is a dead horse. I've proved my point with Dawkins' writings. But as long as you guys post to me I'll give you the courtesy of a reply.
Ill play along though: It is my opinion that if Ayn Rand was Queen, she would ban religion.
Then her view of religion accords with Marx and in that arena her views were Marxist.
No. The point is, that this whole discussion has been over a series of assertions posted by Doctor Stochastic. I used his definitions to show a contradiction. Now this supposed great error on my part is what you have dug your teeth into. Enjoy the air which your jaws encompass. You can no more stop the summation than you can stop the dropping of needles to calculate the probability of Buffon's problem, they both involve pi. Arguments are in context. You ignore the context. So enjoy your air.
I posted this particular interview in its entirety up thread, around 2043 I think.
Ed seems to think that "stamping out" doesn't mean stamping out but something less than stamping out. Of course I have a different opinion since I can conceive of no rational reason to leave smallpox floating around the population if one could "stamp it out".
But my view on Dawkins isn't based on "quote mining", it's based on reading numerous articles he has written on religion and various interviews.
It's my opinion and if Dawkins thinks my opinion is "libel" Ed, he has no more understanding of the United States Constitution, American jurisprudence or libel laws in America.
placemarker
Now you're lying about my posts? That post is clear - one can want something stamped out but not advocate banning it. I for example would like Creationist Lying like yours stamped out, but don't think it should be banned.
Do you really think you're fooling anyone?
As for Dawkins, you have lied about him in writing and that is the dictionary meaning of libel, even here in America.
"Supposed" error? Bullshit. You claimed that rational arithmetic is closed under all the operations in that equation. It has been shown otherwise but you won't admit you were wrong. It is pathetic.
That post is clear - one can want something stamped out but not advocate banning it.
LOL, you're a joke Ed.
extinguish
verb
When will Dawkins be appearing?
Furthermore you know no more about the First Amendment, American jurisprudence or libel law than Mr. Dawkins, nor do you evidently care.
No Doc. The alternative would be to embrace Life.
Hey Gore3000! Hows it going?
Then her [Rand] view of religion accords with Marx and in that arena her views were Marxist.
Which goes to show how ridiculous using one's views on religion as a criteria for defining them as a Marxist.
This has been a very Gore3000esque exchange. Thanks for the memories.
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