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
You refer to some words of mine that were poorly written. I've since rephrased the question and I've since been enlightened as to as the general matter of the electromagnetic spectrum. I'm willing to inquire, but unwilling to accept certain propositions without criticism. That's what science is about.
you should know that you are just not going to be considered an authoritative voice on the subject.
LOL! One does not need to have an authoritative voice to point where wild assertions are presented as scientific facts. Besides, you overestimate my concern for your assessment of my voice.
I was wondering if anyone got the reference...
First and foremost, that it communicates in a manner allowing me to comprehend and respond.
Good grief! LOL!
Is the rest of the world supposed to accept this as the only valid definition of what is, or is not, supernatural? If so, why? By what authority do you make this proposition, and with what evidence?
No. That just proves the thing you are communicating with is intelligent, not that it was designed by intelligence. And, what about all those obviously unintelligently designed parts of the human anatomy I asked you about? I never even brought up the problems associated with our digestive system because of our upright stance.
Now we're getting silly - and that's good.
The part where information arises and is communicated without the aid of an intelligent agent.
I did LMAO!
Yuppers. :-)
I cannot believe that creationists are so thick as to not know this.
MUST ... NOT ... POST ... REPLY ...
Let's see. When was the last time I saw an intelligent being manufacture a bad back, a weak knee, and a host of other components that function together in a self-aware being? Maybe if we put all the most intelligent evolutionists together in one room we would have enough intelligence to get the job done. Ya think?
That reply made absolutely no sense at all. Are you off your meds or something?
Oh, no. You don't read people's links, and you think my posts are too long. It's obvious you don't give a crap what I say, or what anyone else says for that matter. All the same, accusing others of ignorance is a good way to make a big hypocrite out of yourself.
maybe it's a secret agent instead.
I can't believe certain people would adopt a convention of speech without considering the implications. Does this mean that only unseen, unobserved things can be supernatural? Perhaps in your world, but your world is not the determinant of objective reality.
I think Patrick Henry's just trying to stretch this thread out so he can get #900. Otherwise why would he bring up athletic supporters?
I already own all primes! I can afford to be generous.
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