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
What, that inanimate matter can, by virtue of natural selection and random mutations, become alive and communicate with me by saying, "Intelligent Design has nothing to do with my existence?" You're right. I don't understand the concept, and neither you nor your cheerleaders have done well at explaining it. You've done even worse by promoting the notion that there is no other answer worthy of consideration where learning and education are concerned. The Inquisition never died. It only changed shoes.
Uh huh. Equally, the evidence is just as strong for wood sprites and Reynard the Fox and Rigelian lizard people, however, science is prejudiced toward selecting answers to questions that involve the least necessary leaps into assumptions about what we don't yet know.
It amuses me in a queer way to hear an intelligently designed being tell me there is no such thing as intelligent design involved is his existence.
I suppose then, that all post hoc, ergo propter hoc arguments amuse you.
Galileo would be rolling his eyes. The proponents of ID are the modern day Galileos, and this time folks like you are on the side of ignorance.
Much bravado, little sense or evidence. At least you're consistent.
Were it not for the fact that this book was received also among those in the church, who in that day were nearly the sole supporters of scientific endeavor, your statement would almost make sense.
Your proposal is audacious and innovative. It makes more sense than ID. But then, that's a rather low standard.
Mathematical method of boiling water given a match, an idle stove, a kettle of cold water: light stove with the match, put the kettle on.
Mathematical method of boiling water given a match, a lit stove, a kettle of cold water: turn off the stove; now we've reduced the problem to the previous case.
Indeed! That underwire plays heck with microwaves. :-)
(gets hot too) Oops... Should I have let on about that???
What, that inanimate matter can, by virtue of natural selection and random mutations, become alive and communicate with me by saying, "Intelligent Design has nothing to do with my existence?"
No one's talking about "inanimate matter." How many times has this been pointed out?
You're assuming 1) intelligence and 2) design, without having demonstrated either. Therefore, you're begging the question.
You're right. I don't understand the concept, and neither you nor your cheerleaders have done well at explaining it.
Please do not mistake your willful ignorance for the others' failure.
You've done even worse by promoting the notion that there is no other answer worthy of consideration where learning and education are concerned. The Inquisition never died. It only changed shoes.
Again, you appear confused. All the posters here are saying is that anything presented as science must be science. If you want to claim that ID is scientific, kindly point out where the science is in ID. I have yet to see anything remotely scientific about it.
Please excuse me for saying so, but someone who has problems with basic scientific concepts is not in a good position to be accusing other people of ignorance. This is not to say that you can't have an opinion, but you should know that you are just not going to be considered an authoritative voice on the subject.
Remember however, if you can observe it and test it, it ain't supernatural by definition.
If you'll tell me how to do an e-raspberry, consider it done.
Have you seen them? I haven't. Have you even heard serious reports of their existence? I haven't.
But I've seen intelligent design, and everytime I've seen it, I've reasonably assumed a designer is behind it. There IS evidence for intelligent design, far more than there is for natural selection and random muatations as agents in performing meaningful functions, let alone communicating information.
Okay, I'll bite. What about that entity evidences intelligent design? Could it be the jaw too small for the dentition (hence problems with wisdom teeth)? Could it be the back incompletely evolved for an upright stance (leading to back problems as one gets older)? Could it be the knees, which are subject to overstressing? Could it be the eyeball with the optic nerve lying over the center of vision? Enquiring minds want to know.
I beleive the correct form is, "Thphth!"
Blindness. God's allowance of man to ignore God.
Dude! And I thought you were so butch! ;^)>
I think there's a song ...
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