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
So the Bible is not perfect? Therefore there is no such thing as sin? Therefore God is not perfect because man wrote about and described Him?
Christ died for nothing?
I fixed a mistake in his writing. I hope he doesn't mind.
None of this objective evidence is denial of God, IMHO.
Science mines ignorance out of boredom.
Creationists mine ignorance as a tool to challenge scientific dogma.
Dawkins makes a fine preacher.
I don't see "bashing" (whatever that means) either. I do however, think the Kansas remark was unnecessarily derisive and subtracted from the author's otherwise solid message.
Exactly the problem with creation/ID. It's the science of punting on first down. "I can't understand it. I won't understand it. You can't make me! Goddidit. I won't learn any more about cause and effect!"
quite contrary, we are the ones talking about the FIRST cause,
I have to say again that Dawkins nailed it, and it's utterly damning. It's why I tend to call ID the UNscience. It's about undoing--sabotaging-- someone else's hard work at discovery. It's an active tearing down of knowledge, a sweeping under the rug of evidence. "Luddite" isn't too strong a word at all.
poor junior....there is no repenting in the hereafter. (Heb 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment) ... Shalom
You're side may be correct. Our side my be right. BUT If our side is correct, I sure wouldn't want to be in your place at the last roundup!
The important thing to remember is both sides base their opinion on faith. Christians base their opinion on the life altering change Christ made in their life. Something they know as fact, yet cannot prove to anyone. Evolutionists base their faith on a theory developed by scientists. The people who once thought the world was flat.
One definition of faith is a "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence." One could say, allow me some latitude here, science is "belief that rests on logical proof and material evidence." (I suspect that belief word will start a conversation, but I’m going for contrast.)
Creationists are people of faith trying to win the argument on scientific grounds. It doesn't work because it's still faith masquerading as science; and so the debate goes on.
Not being a person of faith, I find I can’t hold a meaningful discussion with the faithful. It’s like trying to win an argument over which recipe is tastiest or which painting is the best. I’m sure they feel the much the same about me.
I know a guy who has three sisters, no brothers and five daughters.
His father's name will die with him.
Yet his father has 18 grandchildren.
I wouldn't say his father's genes have died out by any stretch of the imagination.
Simply saying 'Goddidit' is pretty lazy; but you can say 'Goddidit' and then ask, "how did God do it?"
For matters such as the origin of the universe (unknowable - we can keep pushing our understanding of how it changed from an initial state back to fractions of nanoseconds, but *never* be able to describe time=0). A "reason" or "purpose" could never be divined by science either. There is room for God and for faith (alas, a description of our observations does not require God).
Not being sensitive to these things is counter-productive. I would say that the majority of scientific contributions have been made by the faithful (for obvious raw number reasons), who probably see their work, in some way, as learning little bits about how God "goes about His work". Or appreciating His art.
according to Hank Hanegraaff:
Under the banner of "theistic evolution," a growing number of Christians maintain that God used evolution as His method for creation. This, in my estimation, is the worst of all possibilities.
It is one thing to believe in evolution, it is quite another to blame God for it. Not only is theistic evolution a contradiction in terms -- like the phrase flaming snowflakes -- but as we have seen, it is also the cruelest, most inefficient system for creation imaginable….
The most significant consequence, however, is that [evolution] undermines the very foundation of Christianity. If indeed evolution is reflective for the laws of science, then Genesis must be reflective of the flaws of Scripture. And if the foundation of Christianity is flawed, the superstructure is destined to fall.
Does God have to make millions of mistakes along the way to have fellowship with you and me?
Eve?
"I am black, but comely . . ."
-- Song of Solomon 1:5
"Behold, thou art fair, my love . . ."
-- Song of Solomon 1:15
And, is the Song of Solomon an allegory of Adam and Eve? Enquiring minds want to know . . . ;)
We were all created. Many devolve.
None of the evidence being swept under the rug, misrepresented, lied about, etc. is about that. God has to do everything, all the time. If the evidence doesn't show that, then it's the fault of immoral, Godless science.
ID is the science that says, "If it isn't a miracle, then THAT's a miracle!"
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