The "Threat" of Creationism, by Isaac Asimov

Internet ^ | 1984 | Isaac Asimov

[chaosagent]

I've always seen this as two separate events.

The first paragraph is the Big Bang and the creation of the Universe we see today, the energy of the Big Bang being transformed into the matter of the universe today...light and dark.

The second paragraph decribes the further 'evolution' of the universe into suns and moons, stars and planets.

This being said, my personal belief is that the basic tenets of both creationism and evolution are correct, or maybe half correct. Each one needs the other.

If we look at the universe around us, it's logical. Everything works like it does for a reason. Planets orbit around stars. Moons orbit around planets. Bodes Law works for the solar system. Bloods flows thru our bodies, carrying oxygen and waste products. We breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. It all works

Some of it we understand, some of we don't, yet. But we're pretty sure that in going from the macro to the micro we're not suddenly going to discover that "it's turtles all the way down" from here. (well, maybe quantum mechanics could be turtles, your guess is as good as mine.)

If you believe that God is omnipotent, and created the universe and everything in it, then it certainly makes sense that he didn't have to create it this way.

Suns don't have to fusion furnaces, burning hydrogen. They could just BE. Planets don't have to orbit suns. They could just sit there. Gravity wouldn't be needed. You would just stick the the earth because God made it that way.

And our bodies don't need cells and DNA. We could just be made of clay like the golem of old. We wouldn't need blood or brains. We would just BE because God made us that way.

But from the other side, as much as my science background would like, I just can't believe that all this was just an 'accident'. That we're just LUCKY that we evolved here on Earth.

To me it makes much more sense that we and the universe around us evolved this way because God created it that way.

That 10-20 billion years ago God started this all off with the Big Bang (Let there be light!) and we and the universe had continued to evolve because God made that way. And that we have a purpose here in the universe. We just don't know what it is yet.

So there.

[jennyp]

"Good. Now, would you say that Homo sapiens sapiens was an improvement over Australopithecus afarensis?"

Of course.

OK, now I'm curious: Please tell me the nature of the Designer. Is this designing entity infinitely intelligent? (If you say "yes", you know what my next question will be!)

[LogicWings]

No they won't.

Always bugs me when people state opinions as dogmatic fact. The Chinese are having increasing problems with another uprising like Tiennaman (and I'm sure thats spelled wrong0 Square. They will stall.

As long as the Chinese are willing to manufacturer goods for American consumption at pennies on the dollar under sweatshop conditions, with few environmental strictures, and American businesses pursue same with little regard for the future consequences, China won't stall

And that's the point, they won't continue to be willing. They cannot continue to educate their populace enough to work under the conditions necessary without the natives getting restless. It ain't a water monopoly. Either they clamp down, and stall; or they loosen and democratize. Laws of economics and all that.

Plus which, Americans have "full access" to the Internet, but most couch potatoes still get their news from the idiot box.

And that full access has resulted in the Repubs dominating all three branches of government for the first time in recent memory, and I credit this site, Newsmax, TownHall, and just a plethora of conservative leaning websites, as much or more than Fox News, Rush, Hannity and Savage. They don't have a monopoly upon news and info anymore, and it makes a difference.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, "The only man worse off than a man who can't read is one who can but doesn't."

Let 'em sit. I am active on dozens of venues. Local ones, national ones, and so are many others. Be as pessimistic as you like, puts in sitting next to the couch potatoes.

[LogicWings]

God created the big bang...end of discussion ;)

If we're going for mysticism, I say it was a Unicorn fart.

[LogicWings]

While there are certainly worse philosophies than objectivism, a philosophy that holds self-interest as a (perhaps the) key ethical tenet has the evil built in.

Always bugs me when people state opinions as dogmatic fact.

Self interest is not only the key ethical tenet for Objectivism, it is the key ethical tenet for life. "The only thing wrong is you called it evil", Franscisco said. Which is why altruism is anti-life, it violates the rules of life.

Someday, we'll be rid of you people and will be able to live as men, instead of as brainwashed slaves.

[captain11]

PLEASE tell us exactly what is this "evil" that's "built in" to Objectivism!

For a quick refresher on objectivism:

• Objectivism rejects any belief in the supernatural — and any claim that individuals or groups create their own reality.
• The first part makes evil's work easier. The second presumes some detached, faceless, abstract objectivism in the universe, independent of context and perception, and effectively treats it as a deity--also evil.

• Reality, the external world, exists independent of man’s consciousness, independent of any observer’s knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears.
• We are part of reality, and it does not exist independently of any of us. Even at the raw physical level, given that consciousness is (at least) an amalgam of electrochemical processes, we are part of reality, not detached from it. Thus, this tenet of objectivism is false, and in that sense evil.

• "Man's reason is fully competent to know the facts of reality. Reason, the conceptual faculty, is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. Reason is man's only means of acquiring knowledge." Thus Objectivism rejects mysticism (any acceptance of faith or feeling as a means of knowledge), and it rejects skepticism (the claim that certainty or knowledge is impossible).
• First, the world is replete with empirical evidence that man's reason is not fully competent to know the facts of reality. One only has to observe the unecessary chaos and net slowdown caused by frequent lane changers on a busy freeway. It is an objective fact that in many circumstances, if most drivers stay mostly in the same lane, traffic will move faster for everyone. Yet this is often not the case. Man has limited capacity to accurately integrate input from his senses. His rational faculties, while impressive, are still limited and subject to frequent error. Couple this with the objectivist dismissal of faith as a means of knowledge, and you have the ingredients for evil.

I could go on. Ayn Rand was a fine writer, if only a passable philosopher. There are certainly worse philosophies (the Year Zero insanity of Pol Pot's collectivist nightmare comes to mind), but there is plenty of evil in objectivism.

[captain11]

Self interest is not only the key ethical tenet for Objectivism, it is the key ethical tenet for life. The only thing wrong is you called it evil", Franscisco [sic] said. Which is why altruism is anti-life, it violates the rules of life.

Go get 'em, Hank. For my part, I'll seek wisdom from sources besides the words of a fictional playboy/jerk/magnate character in a decent novel by a second-rate philosopher.

[jennyp]

What a strange analysis. (But thanks for posting it.)

Your first point I can't even begin to understand.

Your second point misses the point. Sure we are part of reality, but Peikoff is saying we don't create reality, in the sense that wishing something were true won't make it so. "Nature, to be controlled, must be obeyed." (Or however the saying goes.)

Your third point is a complaint that Man is imperfect. This also misses the point. The point is, the world is knowable in principle. The more facts we know about the world, the more we're able to understand it. More knowledge + valid logical inferences lead to a closer approximation of the Truth - it doesn't lead us away from Truth.

[captain11]

Always bugs me when people state opinions as dogmatic fact.

People who repeat the same whine in successive replies are easily bugged.

[LogicWings]

First of all, previously you said,

(reifying per se is never sufficient evidence of a logical fallacy),

Now anybody who asserts that reifying is never sufficient evidence of a logical fallacy isn't someone logical enough to argue with in the first place. This means you can blast through fallacies anytime you wish and simply ignore them, because for you they don't exist. No logic, no reason, no discussion.

Second, you haven't said anything else worthwhile, just denial, denigration "rubbish" "nonsense" because you can't answer the fallacies pointed out in your arguments and you have no other answers.

DNA is not a 'program' and you cannot prove it is without assuming a 'programmer'. Same Begged Question we started with.

I don't have to resort to your wording, which isn't worth resorting to anyway, because the point is made by reality. There is no evidence of an 'Intelligent Design' period. Any assertion there is, is just Begging the Question that it is intelligent, let alone a design. There is plenty of ways to show that it is, in fact, not intelligent, such as two headed snakes and babies without brains.

Oh please. Base 4 processes have never been proven to have come from ANYTHING except Intelligent Intervention.

Oh, go please yourself. There you go, proving negatives again. Facts speak for themselves, if DNA exists, that is your proof, UNTIL you prove the existence of the Designer, not say, "There is no other explanation so there must be" which is all your argument is.

The only way that you could even claim otherwise is to be so intellectually dishonest as to assert that we "know" that evolution is true so therefor DNA must have been self-programmed naturally (i.e. a tautology, something that no honest intellectual would like to be caught using).

Once again, like most of your ilk, you've got it backwards. I don't have to 'know' evolution is true, there is simply no evidence that there is anything else taking place. The issue is still open, someone may find little crosses stamped upon each DNA molecule but until that happens there is no evidence other than the evidence that exists, that DNA exists as it is, and it was created by a natural process. There is no tautology if one doesn't fallaciously apply the concept of 'programming' to something that wasn't programmed, that you have no evidence was programmed, and which you reify as a program in order to make a point that cannot otherwise be made.

[LogicWings]

Now you're responding to replies not directed to you. You should consider quitting while you're behind.

I was critiquing. Like to call things for what they are, especially when they are as ugly as that was.

[LogicWings]

People who repeat the same whine in successive replies are easily bugged.

Naw, I just hate bugs in my wine. Besides, it was pertinent and funny.

[LogicWings]

Well, that was fun while it lasted. Thanks. Haven't been in a brawl like that in quite a while. Until next time.

[captain11]

DNA is not a 'program' and you cannot prove it is without assuming a 'programmer'. Same Begged Question we started with.

Guess again. And again. At root, that's precisely what DNA encodes...a program. A stunningly complex program that controls how a fairly undifferentiated handful of cells grows into a manta ray, or a zebra, or a human.

How that program came to be is obvious to some of us, but Southack doesn't need to prove there is a programmer. A program it is.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Ok. I slept on it. Your photo library makes a compelling case. I simply do not trust left wing doctrines, however. They lie almost all the time. The occassional truth would be a surprise. Time Maggazine might soon be under new management, and then perhaps 'Time' will tell. I realise that human skulls have evolved subtly, even over the last 2 thousand years. Whether we were created directly out of clay or not, we have evolved since our beginning. And all animals, as I said in the beginning, evolved, which does not necessarilly conflict with Genisis.

Now for the root question: is the Book of Genisis reality, fiction, or garbled due to its ancient, prehistoric origins? The truth is, we will never know for sure in our lifetimes. How important is it? To some, it would mean proof that the Bible is a fairy tale. Not to me, however. Most religions are based on nothing but fairy tales, while the Bible is based on 95% history at the very least. And it has amazing prophesies.

FReegards....

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

I decided to come back. LOL.

You wrote, Creationist parents have an absolute right to send their children to schools that will give them a creationist education. But not at my expense.

Do you realise what you stepped into there? Oh my. What about creationist parents paying for teachers teaching something that opposes their religious convictions? What about my tax money paying for 'Piss Christ' artwork? What about my tax money paying for all the leftist dogma that exhists in public schools? What about my tax money paying for leftist, military-hating professors that should be tied to bombs dropped over Iraq?

What about my tax money being payed to Eric Waldheim's pension? Remember the former nazi the UN hired? My tax money STILL pays for his blinking pension!

And you quibble about a small course on creationism payed for via vouchers if parents get school choice? I think that would be a paltry sacrifice on your part to liberate children from public schools. It is wrong, I agree. But the reality is, parents are not going to vote for abolishing the public school system without government help given in its place.

[mdmathis6]

"How alarming! I generally have little more reaction beyond complacent derision for creationism, but this essay delivers a powerful wakeup call. If America slides inexorably back into the grips of creationist obscurantism, it will slip into the twilight much the same as the Ming and Qing dynasties oversaw China's demise in a past era. But, what to do?"

The roots of our modern science began among men who beleived in God or were influenced by religion. These men formed the "root" sciences from which all modern science and their technological achievements have descended. Many modern scientists have been complaining that there have been no more "root" sciences established in the last 150 years, just off shoots from established science.

When it was decided amongst certain "thinkers" that notions of God, and morality, should have no place in modern scientific reasoning, it was as if the stream of knowledge was cut off from its source. A break from classical rationalism with its emphasis on proceeding from a given viewpoint and deductive analysis of data was made in favor of pure scientific empiricism with its emphasis on "inductive" reasoning based on observation and measurement of data. The real fault with inductive reasoning is that it ends up being at the whim of the biases that the experimenter applies in order to make "sense" of what the data is telling him; forcing him in the end into a rationalistic thought process as explained above.(whether or not the "given" or "theory" is valid or not valid)

God exists or God exists not is really the only primary question each individual is faced with. The rest of a man's thought process is colored by what he decides about that question. The fallacy of the materialists is their view that religious folk can't make good scientists; they forget about Newton, Mendel, Pascal(inventor of the Calculas), the inventors of the use of zero and algebra(muslims), the ancient Greeks who saw God in the invention of euclidian Geometry, and hosts of others who founded root sciences under the aegis of religious belief.

"The fool says in his heart, there is no God"Proverbs

[fr_freak]

You are 'Equivocating' the meaning of the word 'faith' based upon the misconception or misunderstanding of some person's understanding of evolution. Which is why I said it was the inverse of Asimov's argument.

The assertion that "accepting the theory on a basis that resembles faith rather than a true understanding of science" is no reflection upon the theory itself and the idea that it 'resembles faith' is just an opinion. And one which, seen strictly from a scientific point of view, is wrong.

Well, I think you may have misinterpreted my statement. I don't mean to say that because there are people out there who except the theory of Evolution on faith that it is therefore equivalent to Creationism, because I am fully aware that there are many scientists (and enthusiasts)who have a full understanding of modern evolutionary theory and whose belief is a result of careful study and thought.

What I am saying is that, by far, the majority of the supporters of Evolutionary theory are those who probably don't even understand the basics; they simply know that they have a choice between Evolution and Creationism and have chosen the former. The basis for that choice is less scientific reason than faith, simply because scientific reason requires subject knowledge. This especially applies to those who administer education at the high school, and perhaps, undergraduate level, where most of the Evolution vs. Creationism battles are fought.

So, what I am questioning is not the soundness of the theory itself, based on the motives of its true believers, but the tendency of its less-educated supporters to dismiss Creationists' beliefs as ridiculous solely because they are faith-based, while exhibiting all the signs of faith-based belief themselves. In that sense, Asimov's Argument from General Consent applies to these supporters of Evolution because they seem to have thrown their faith toward Evolution only because everyone else is, rather than having been won over by their own study.

[connectthedots]

One is not required to 'disprove creation' since one cannot prove a negative.

You need a new screen name; your current one does not accurately describe you. The creation position is not a 'negative'. It is a positive assertion and is therefore quite amenable to be disproven, assuming one can find the evidence.

This does not change the fact that there is no evidence of macro-evolution. The religious belief in evolution is founded on mere speculation and unreasonable premises. Where are the transitional life forms; or do you believe in punctuated equilibrium, a hypothesis that is entirely opposite of the evolutionary belief of gradual change? Which is it?

Also you completely ignored the fact that there is considerable evidence that suggests macro-evolution is impossible because too many features in a transitional form would all have to occur within in a single generation in order for that new species to survive, even if one could assume such a life-form could survive to maturity in the first place.

One need not prove creation in order to disprove evolution. the problem for the evolutionists is that macro-evolution has been disproven and the only other rational option is creation/intelligent design; unless you can think of a third explanation for life as we know it.

[PatrickHenry]

Someday, we'll be rid of you people and will be able to live as men, instead of as brainwashed slaves.

Yeah, yeah. But until then, be sure to get your income tax forms filed on time.