President Bush invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution in public schools with remarks saying that schoolchildren should be taught about "intelligent design," a view of creation that challenges established scientific thinking and promotes the idea that an unseen force is behind the development of humanity.(Via the Washington Post)
Although he said that curriculum decisions should be made by school districts rather than the federal government, Bush told Texas newspaper reporters in a group interview at the White House on Monday that he believes that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution as competing theories.
"Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about," he said, according to an official transcript of the session. Bush added: "Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . . You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."
Seriously. Here you are, Tsui or Sanjay, looking at a new cenury. A century in which the exponential curve of technology's rise becomes a sheer cliff. In which only the most intellectually nimble countries, best able to master new information technologies and couple them with manufacturing bases with high levels of technical training, will survive.
And you're looking at that big bastard across the ocean, the US of A. First to build the Bomb. First to master the secrets of the atom. First to build the semiconductor. First and only tribe of humans who actually put men on the GODDAM MOON, to have stepped on another rock in space. Decoders of the human genome, the VERY BOOK OF LIFE !!! How will we ever stop --
Wow, they forfeit. Cool.
I'm not going to rehash the whole ridiculousness of Intelligent Design, or as it's more commonly known: "Creationism Trying to Look Serious By, Say, Squinting -- Like Denise Richards Playing the Nuclear Weapons Expert In That Bond Movie". My pal Orac has all the necessary links. If you don't understand that there's absolutely no contradiction between believing in God and evolution, then frankly I'm not going to waste the time trying to jam a rhetorical screwdriver into your pineal gland's butterfly valve and crank up the air flow. Nor will I trot out another version of I Miss Republicans, although I suspect that a fair number of people out there are pretty rattled, as it's become the number one entry page to this blog over the last day.
I just have to say to my conservative friends ... listen, I don't want to hear SHIT when this comes back to bite us in the ass. When you're watching your children rocket downward through the Brave New Working Classes from gamma through delta straight to the epsilons, not a word. When the leader of your party turns his back on science, the product of God's 2nd greatest gift to us, reason,* when he turns from the very process which brought so much progress and prosperity to this land and encourages those would so eagerly toss aside rational thought itself ... gah, never mind voting Democrat: if my choice were between these cowards who would turn back the Enlightenment and anal-probing yet intellectually honest Martians, I would grit my teeth, vote for the Martians and learn to visualize my Happy Place during my Probe-Center appointments.
Am I reading too much into this statement? Am I making too big a deal of this? In one word, fuckno. This is just a symptom of what is, to me, the most destructive thing to occur in America in twenty years.
Even if your kids aren't directly taught ID or aren't in one of the new Bible Class districts, the overarching cultural damage has already been done. Through this group of RadicalRighties' constant rhetoric, they consistently strip away the idea that there is indeed a rigorous scientific process through which certain non-negotiable physical truths can be ascertained. They have suffused the county with with an intellectual laziness and a terrifying narcissism. Opinion has been enshrined as superior to fact. No longer need a person take into account the way the world works when forming their worldview -- they can instead hunt down "facts" and "theories" which support their own comfort zone, and what's worse, we can NO LONGER CALL BULLSHIT. Because if our leaders -- pardon me, your leaders -- don't call bullshit, who will? They have undermined the very process by which we know WHEN to call bullshit!
For the alleged "realists" in the public arena, the guys running the Right are now the ultimate masters of relativism.
Look my conservative pals, we have our agreements and disagreements but on this one, you've got to just take the hit. Don't ever look me in the eye again and try to play the cynicism-dressed-as-realism card again. Seriously. There's no high ground left here whatsoever. The ultimate representative of your political party, standing on the limitless future's shrouded shores, has decided he needs no compass, no maps, no guides, no stars with which to plot his course. Just a shrug and a chuckle before he casts off, eyes closed, into the darkness.
You wouldn't trust your children to an airplane pilot who did that, or a Scoutmaster. If your doctor said "You know what, we're going to blow off all the currently available research and treat your child's cancer with a completely untested, never scientifically proven bit of guesswork which, however, reinforces my world-view. Because what does science really know?" you'd be pulling out of the parking lot before he finished the sentence. But when it's public policy, it's OKAY?
Sure, it's just my opinion. But this is bigger than budgets, or how to fight wars, or how to manage our environment or resources, because where we stand on facts, reason, science, that informs every other decision we make in all those fields and every other. This is what determines whether societies live or die.
Again, our motto at Kung Fu Monkey: "Everybody who wants to live in the 21st century over here. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800's over there. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that."
* I have in a previous post established God's greatest gift to us as doubt. Let it never be said these rants lack an internal consistency.
(NOTE: Find that interesting, enraging or useful? I'm now blogging to raise money for the Army Emergency Relief Fund. Check the sidebar on how to donate.)
118 comments:
And what a disaster it is that they've managed to make any skepticism regarding the specifics of Darwin's theory sound like the VICTORY of intelligent design over that silly, outdated evolution thing.
Offering ID to our kids in science class by some sort of "Fair's fair, let's air everyone's opinions on this and choose our favorite" model not only deprives students of legitimate scientific knowledge - it desecrates the concept of scientific inquiry.
Does this mean we can start teaching "The Earth sits on the back of a giant turtle" theory in our schools now?
That's been ignored for far too long.
Bravo, John. That was brilliant. I'm a-linkin' to that on my site as I type.
And everybody who's anybody knows that the Earth sits atop a giant sphincter. We are the entrance to the asshole of the universe.
Hooray beer!
I don't know why I get singled out as the representative conservative, because I am about as ape-shit insane unhappy about this nonsense as anyone.
I don't know what is going on with my party anymore.
Kung Fu Monkey is now my new favorite blog-by-a-guy-I-don't-know-in-real-life. Thank you, John.
You're Kung Fu is strong and I'm glad, as a reasonable person, that you've got our back!
John, you get singled out, because you're the type of conservative who's driven ape-shitinsane by this stuff. That is, the type I respect.
You gotta cross over, Cole, there's no alternative.
Nice one, John! I'm not sure they're hoping for the 1800's though. It seems to be much more medieval, though perhaps they'll try keeping some slaves to keep their technology working ;)
Nice work John.
Don't know if anyone would agree with me, but I've found that the biggest thing that's changed in America in recent years is not that there are lunatics, nutters and fundies out there, but that *they're in charge*. They control government, policy and direction for the country, and even if they're still technically a minority, they're going to change a hell of a lot more before anyone stops them, it looks like.
And lets not forget that this is really the shit that led to the Iraq war, the decline of the media and the rise of these extremists in office - if people don't know how to rationalise between fact and opinion anymore, or even really think properly, then these are the things we'll get.
(And as an Australian, let me say that these arguments are suspiciously beginning to be applicable to my country as well...)
In the hurry to ignorantly, and constantly refer to evolution as, "just a theory", the way that I'd maybe say, "I think it's going to rain today," these baffoons fail to realize that evolution may just be a theory, but intelligent design isn't even that.
PKD...
No, no no, no no no no NO!!!! (ahem - excuse me) Evolution is NOT just a theory. We cannot EVER concede that point. Mutations in the genome lead to a variety of traits. Environmental pressures lead to higher rates of reproduction among entities with certain traits but not other, depending on the habitat. This produces the variety of species that exist today. That's evolution. That's also an established FACT! The only uncertaintities are in the specific mechanisms. An analogy: cells in the eye are hit by light photons, sending neural signals to the brain. This is how vision happens. No one argues against this, even though we don't know all of the specifics of the mechanism. Same thing for evolution.
Please don't interpret the fervor of my post as being an attack on you PKD, just trying to help our side present as strong a front as possible. We shouldn't let the other side control the language of the debate.
Todd
Todd,
I'm using theory in the scientific sense, just as I said, not in the "I think it's going to rain today," sense which would be a theory in general everyday speak.
In terms of science, a theory is pretty much the best we have.
Apologies PKD, misunderstood your original text. You are quite right in all regards.
What do you think would happen to the "politically-correct, public-servant, representative-of-all-things-good-and-free" Bush when arriving at the press conference announcing that the Lefty front runner for the Presidency is a Jewish black lady? *
I could see "spontaneous combustion" as an option.
* Unknown to many, there's a large (relatively speaking) population of Ethiopian Jews wandering the planet, making the candidate a real possibility.
Dead on once again, Mr. Rogers. One quibble, though. Me and the Dalai Lama think God's greatest gift to us is compassion, but I'm an art fag, so there ya go.
Excellent post, Mr. Rogers.
I agree with chris - it's time to bring back some of the OLD creationist theories if we have to "accept" ID. I personally am rooting for the Discworld model of elephants and astrocheloneans, mainly because I like the idea of believing in the gods is like believing in the postman and it just encourages them.As a second choice I'd go for a model of turtles all the way down. Makes just as much sense to me.
John, I think there is a deep incompatibility between evolution and religion, and I think there's something misguided about shielding even moderate religious views from the implications of evolution out of "respect" or "tolerance." The incompatibility isn't a logical one, which is why it's so easy to politely or conveniently ignore, but as Taner Edis points out, the progress of science has relentlessly converged on a strictly naturalistic picture of the cosmos. Evolution is one of the hugest leaps forward in the disenchantment of our world. It absolutely, positively does encroach on territory once claimed (and even still claimed, as we see) by religion. I don't understand why religion should be given a pass on this. I don't think that revising religious understanding to accomodate scientific progress makes it any more reasonable; I think it's just the refinement of an error.
Suppose, one dark night, two kids hear a noise outside. One says it's a ghost. The other goes to look, and finds out it's a cat. So the first kid says, "Well, it's the ghost in the form of a cat," or "Well, it's a cat possessed by the ghost!" or some such evasive nonsense which preserves, however ridiculously, the "hypothesis" that the noise was produced by a ghost.
That is exactly how the increasing "sophistication" of liberal or moderate religion looks to me. The sophisticated revisions preserve the original error in the face of disconfirmation. I really think religion should be called on this, and forcefully.
Curt,
You make some excellent points and I’m not sure whether I agree with you or not. In one way, as our scientific understanding of life and the universe becomes more refined, religion will look more and more archaic and foolish as it tries to convince everyone that a big, crusty white guy in the sky makes everything happen in our heliocentric universe through magic.
This leads to its own kind of backlashes, like the fighting to get prayer put back into school, putting monuments into court rooms and fighting to teach fantasy in science classes. The Christian establishment knows that unless it’s all pervasive in our lives, from a very young age, it’ll lose the war to science, reason and popular culture.
I think the reason some of us currently appease Christians is because we fear a more direct rejection of what we perceive as progress. A Christian who outright rejects evolution is clearly worse off than a Christian who accepts evolution, but under the condition that they can accept it as the work of God. One is coming closer to at least having a perception of reality that more closely conforms to what we, to the best of our ability, can know. That Christian is also one step closer than the other to getting to a place where they can say, “Humans came about because of evolution,” without having to hinge it on God.
We can either ease them out of their stupidity in baby steps, or make them cling to it all the more forcefully by attempting to destroy their established worldviews all at once, kind of like cornering a dog. You corner them and they’ll attack back with renewed and “justified” fervor, reeling from some sense of victim-hood and wish for martyrdom.
Either way, the Dominionists can stop progress, not unless they get their own religious policy, and even then it’ll only be America. I should rephrase; they can’t stop progress in this world, they can only make sure America is no longer at its forefront.
If you don't understand that there's absolutely no contradiction between believing in God and evolution
I would quibble here that one should not believe in evolution, and the above implies that. One should understand that the theory of evolution is supported by a mountain of evidence. Scientific theories do not require, and should shun, belief. The evidence and facts support the theory, or they don't — that's it.
pkd,
The problem with your statements is that your attitude towards religion is exactly the view that extreme fundies are having regular paranoid fantasies about. It's the sort of attitude that lets them run their inane "we're being persecuted for our beliefs" fantasy, no matter how generally untrue it is.
Let me say first that I am entirely unreligious personally, but I'm not sure why anyone should care what relgiously beliefs an individual has. No matter how inane we may think they - that's not the point here. This is about the social indoctrination of extreme religious beliefs into all facets of society, and their promotion over modernist views in science, philosophy and everything else.
I don't care what Bush or anyone else thinks about religion - I care that he wants it taught in science classes, and wants it promoted over modern science. And if they can't put modern secularity and observance of the US constitution over their personal beliefs, then that of course is a large part of the problem as well.
By way of comparison - can anyone say why it is that no other western country (that I'm aware of anyway), seems to have any signicant issue with this intrusion of extreme religious thought into public education and public life, even though all these countries have a certain percentage of fundamentalist Christians that surely could cause this problem, but apparently don't?
Stephen,
I don't generally care about anyone's religion, but religion isn't just religion anymore. Here in America, religion is politics, and that's why I’ve come to care.
And the fundies are always going to have paranoid fantasies, whether or not there are people like me, and whether or not the people like me are actively plotting against them.
>>> Here in America, religion is politics, and that's why I’ve come to care.
Well, I guess that is the crux of the issue then.
How is it that one of the few (only?) nations on earth that actually wrote into its founding documents a statute to avoid "state religions" and promote freedom of religion is now in this position?
If they teach it as follows...
"Here is the theory of evolution, and its supporting evidence (insert evidence here) and here's the theory of ID and its supporting evidence (insert silence, crickets, tumblweeds and far-away chuchbells here)"
...I don't see a problem. It can only hurt ID support.
In other words, they can talk about it, but not promote one over the other. Show them the evidence, and let kids make up their own minds. If evolution is so blatantly obvious there won't be a problem.
For the record, I believe evolution happened and is happening. I don't believe in God, but I can't prove He didn't create the world six thousand years ago with a comlete, but fake, fossil record. No-one can.
No one can prove He did either.
That's what makes Science vs Religion such a cool debate.
John Cole, you're not alone. Just today my Dad (a staunch conservative) was arguing with left-wing Christians about how stupid it would be to teach creationism in schools.
F'in *BRILLIANT*, my good man!
Reading this has officially made my day, and given me a happy. I'll be pointing folks at this, oh yes I will.
I'm still looking for a list of medical procedures and remedies that are based on evolution, or based on stuff based on evolution.
Why? I figure this is the Darwinian way out of this mess. Find all the stuff that wouldn't exist without Darwin, and urge creationists to carry medic-alert cards saying "DON'T DO ANY OF THIS STUFF ON ME!" (In the same legal-type verbiage that people who refuse transfusions use.)
If they start dying off as a result, then the species shall be improved. If they survive, they'll have saved everybody a bunch of money.
I'm not kidding about this, but I'll admit I've been too lazy to compile the list.
I agree overall, but I think your comment "If you don't understand that there's absolutely no contradiction between believing in God and evolution, then frankly I'm not going to waste the time ..." is condescending and wrong-headed. Condescending because the argument is far from trivial. Wrong-headed because it's wrong. Many people, progressives, with lots of smarts and kudos think there is an inherent contradiction between rationality and religion. These include Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris (I can't remember how to link; to find summaries check the Huffington Blog). I'm in their camp. To my mind its the fuzzy-headed liberal view of 'why can't we all just get along and pretend that there are no contradictions" that's to blame. As Sam Harris says, "It is time we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious faith".
Wow. I always thought blogs were a waste of time.
A possible retort to the "just a theory" BS would be "The theory of relativity is 'just a theory' too, but I wouldn't go to Hiroshima and tell them that." Apparently explaining the difference between a theory and a hypothesis is too detailed for people whose “thinking” fits on bumper stickers, so a snappy retort might, just might, work.
One of the functions of adults (and other perhaps competent people) supervising education is the separation of what is worth learning from what is not. Just as we would not expect schools to give equal time or credence to courses entitled “History of Madonna” or “Art history of tattoos”, even if some people might desire that, we expect them to be screened out and truly worthwhile things made available. Alas, the triumph off the know-nothings seems complete.
Curt -
I agree that there's something facile in the common claim that evolution and religious belief are simply not contradictory. Though I happen to agree with the claim, it's often tossed out rather blithely by those without deep religious commitment or much knowledge of evolutionary science. In fact, the methodological materialism that underpins scientific method quite easily and commonly morphs into ideological materialism, which is of course incompatible with religious belief. I think it takes an effort to hold onto the methodology without embracing the ideology. I do however believe it's possible and necessary to do so. I think you undersell and misrepresent sophisticated theology, which bears no resemblance to the ghost cat story you describe. You've basically set up a straw which you can easily knock fdown. I think many neo-Darwinian evangelists (such as Dawkins) do the same when it comes to religion. Their arguments for its obsolescence would be more compelling (and interesting) if they could refrain from caricaturing its claims or dismissing non-fundamentalist faith as inauthentic.
The so-called religious organizations which now lead the war against the teaching of evolution are nothing more, at bottom, than conspiracies of the inferior man against his betters. They mirror very accurately his congenital hatred of knowledge, his bitter enmity to the man who knows more than he does, and so gets more out of life . . .
Such organizations, of course, must have leaders; there must be men in them whose ignorance and imbecility are measurably less abject than the ignorance and imbecility of the average. These super-Chandala often attain to a considerable power, especially in democratic states. Their followers trust them and look up to them; sometimes, when the pack is on the loose, it is necessary to conciliate them. But their puissance cannot conceal their incurable inferiority. They belong to the mob as surely as their dupes, and the thing that animates them is precisely the mob's hatred of superiority. Whatever lies above the level of their comprehension is of the devil.
--H.L. Mencken, Homo Neanderthalensis, June 1925
The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. Its evil effects must be plain enough to everyone. All it accomplishes is (a) to throw a veil of sanctity about ideas that violate every intellectual decency, and (b) to make every theologian a sort of chartered libertine. No doubt it is mainly to blame for the appalling slowness with which really sound notions make their way in the world. The minute a new one is launched, in whatever field, some imbecile of a theologian is certain to fall upon it, seeking to put it down. The most effective way to defend it, of course, would be to fall upon the theologian, for the only really workable defense, in polemics as in war, is a vigorous offensive. But the convention that I have mentioned frowns upon that device as indecent, and so theologians continue their assault upon sense without much resistance, and the enlightenment is unpleasantly delayed.
---H.L. Mencken
Two Catholic councils (1909 and 1950) both reached the conclusion that there was no conflict between scientific investigation of biology, geology, etc. and the Catholic faith. More specifically there was no conflict between evolutionary science and the Catholic faith. One official pronouncement of the Mormon elders (1930) also found no conflict between science and the Mormon religion, specifically including no conflict with evolution.
They both specifically emphasized that the church teachings and the scientific understanding of the natural world were independent, and therefore the churches would not express any opinion about any scientific theories. These are from two well established, very conservative, Christian organizations and are the result of substantial internal theological analysis.
I know the theological backgrounds of the bishops and elders who find that there is no conflict. Perhaps those here who see a conflict could explain why their understanding of Catholic and Mormon theology is superior to that of the bishops and elders.
Paul - In other words, they can talk about it, but not promote one over the other. Show them the evidence, and let kids make up their own minds. If evolution is so blatantly obvious there won't be a problem.
Three problems that come immediately to mind:
1) The ID proponents aren't looking for a simple discussion at the start of a class. They want to destroy the science class by diverting already scarce resources and dilluting and confusing the subject at hand. For instance, in Missouri fundamentalist Christian Republicans introduced a bill that would have required 50% of the curricula be devoted to ID. Not just the biology class either - all of the sciences were targeted.
2) There is no evidence in support of ID that doesn't involve supposition, guessing, and wishful thinking.
3) The proponents of ID want it taught along side of science at the primary and secondary education levels where students aren't yet ready to make an informed decission about a subject with which they aren't yet familiar. In science class they should be taught the essence of modern science. In Sunday school (or maybe comparative religion class) they should be exposed to ID. As the students develop and their thinking matures, they can make their informed decissions without diluting the science instruction with religeous indoctrination or diluting the Sunday school classroom with empirical observation, reason and critical thinking.
I love it, the KUNG FU MONKEY TRIAL. The creators of an alternate reality are now really alternating creationism to turn it into a science. VERY COOL. I am a believer in the pendular theory of inanity, and these wobblies are so far out of their minds that the backlash has to be coming. Doesn't it?
Just found your blog, and you RULE. But I have a hard time believing that in this entire discussion no one has yet linked to
http://www.venganza.org/
Hysterical satire, yet makes the point unmistakably...you gotta read it if you haven't already.
Via Billmon @ http://billmon.org/archives/
---------
The so-called religious organizations which now lead the war against the teaching of evolution are nothing more, at bottom, than conspiracies of the inferior man against his betters. They mirror very accurately his congenital hatred of knowledge, his bitter enmity to the man who knows more than he does, and so gets more out of life . . .
Such organizations, of course, must have leaders; there must be men in them whose ignorance and imbecility are measurably less abject than the ignorance and imbecility of the average. These super-Chandala often attain to a considerable power, especially in democratic states. Their followers trust them and look up to them; sometimes, when the pack is on the loose, it is necessary to conciliate them. But their puissance cannot conceal their incurable inferiority. They belong to the mob as surely as their dupes, and the thing that animates them is precisely the mob's hatred of superiority. Whatever lies above the level of their comprehension is of the devil.
H.L. Menken
Homo Neanderthalensis
June 1925
To my anonymous interlocutor: If you don't like being lumped together in "caricature" with the fundamentalists, then maybe you should take that up with them. They always claim to speak and act for Christians, Christianity, Judeo-Christianity, and even religion, and yet I seldom hear so much as a peep of protest or dissent from the likes of you.
The Rev. Barry Lynn is a rare exception, and I admire him for his efforts to maintain the separation between church and state in America. But for the most part, I don't see liberal or moderate Christians rallying around him or putting forth any other effort to take back the public face of Christianity--except in discussions like this, when they whine and complain to secular liberals about being lumped together with fundamentalists.
I'll tell you what: if you can provide some links to blog posts or comments where you've taken a stand against fundamentalists to their faces (so to speak), then I'll beg your pardon. Otherwise, your silence and passivity make you complicit in everything they say and do in the name of your faith, so why shouldn't I lump you together with them? Why shouldn't I hold you accountable for that? Why should I, an atheist, be the "safe" party you can bitch to, when it's the fundamentalists who are publicly and institutionally defining Christianity in all those ways that supposedly don't represent you?
Look, the religious right is waging cultural war, and that isn't just a metaphor for them. Secularists need to start fighting back, and hard. We've really held back for far too long because the beliefs of liberal and moderate Christians place them in the crossfire, and whenever they get grazed, however lightly, they scream and cry--to us, always to us--about how unfair it is. Our compunctions about possibly offending nice, decent, "reasonably" religious people are no longer a luxury we can afford. We need to cut loose with all the ammunition that science and rationality place at our disposal, and if the precious beliefs of liberal and moderate Christians get ventilated in the process, oh well!
Please recognize that the best possible way to deal with this idiocy is not to take it head on. You can’t argue logic to a man who is acting on pure faith and superstition. The only way to advance this argument is to teach the Old Testament in our schools. Have a class for high school students and teach the material. Make it a mandatory class (kids love that) and teach it ALL — not just the parts the creationists want taught. Let the Bible speak for itself and defend the laws and rules found in the text. My bet is that Pat Robertson and Dobson will be suing to stop that class within a year of it starting. Give them what they want and let them deal with the fall out.
Evolution is not a theory, it is a fact. Bacteria, viruses and other microbes provide evidence of this in real time. Fossil remains provide historical evidence. What is in dispute, however, is the method - does the original Darwinian theory provide the best model, or are there better models. The food fights among the evoutionary scientists relate to the model, not the fact of evolution itself. Bush and his sycophants ought to be ashamed.
I enjoyed your post. Here's Asimov making a similar point in 1981:
There are numerous cases of societies in which the armies of the night have ridden triumphantly over minorities in order to establish a powerful orthodoxy which dictates official thought. Invariably, the triumphant ride is toward long-range disaster. [...]
In more recent times, Germany hounded out the Jewish scientists of Europe. They arrived in the US and contributed immesurably to scientific advancement here, while Germany lost so heavily that there is no telling how long it will take it to regain its former scientific eminence. The Soviet Union, in its fascination with Lysenko, destroyed its geneticists, and set back its biological sciences for decades. [...]
Are we now, with all these examples before us, to ride backward into the past under the same tattered banner of orthodoxy? With creationism in the saddle, American science will wither. We will raise a generation of ignoramuses ill-equipped to run the industry of tomorrow, much less to generate the new advances of the days after tomorrow.
We will invariably recede into the backwater of civilization, and these nations that retain open scientific thought will take over the leadership of the world and the cutting edge of human advancement.
I don't suppose that the creationists really plan the decline of the US, but their loudly expressed patriotism is as simple-minded as their "science". If they succeed, they will, in their folly, achieve the opposite of what they say they wish.
Curt -
From your anonymous interlocuter.
I am not a Christian, rather an Orthodox Jew (quite liberal for my community, politically, and to a degree theologically). I've taken part in organizations and groups within my community that reflect that liberal stance (and could be considered controversial). There are plenty of religious voices beside the shrill and mulish ones you refer to, though there's no doubt that the mulish now dominate the conversation . It's not generally because my 'like' isn't talking, we're simply not being listened to. We have smaller bullhorns and much less clout. The religious 'right' (whose theology I believe is often too shapeless, self-serving and undemanding to even deserve the term fundamentalist) define the conversation in the eyes of of the media.
I believe Bush is using this issue cynically. It's just part of the simple, dirt-farmin', brush-cuttin' game he's been playing with himself for decades and with the country for the past 5 years. I don't think he seriously subscribes to ID arguments; I'm sure he's given them little thought. He likes the idea of himself, the former silver-spoon preppie, as the God-fearing cowpoke with his finger in the dyke, holding back the tide. He likes too, the fact that it allows him to score big politically. It's part of an elaborate act, so ingrained now that it's almost sincere.
Another interesting point -- how often and how fervently those (like Bush) who question biological Darwinism, cling to social Darwinism, make it an anomalous cornerstone of their theology.
Creationism is God's way of ensuring that somebody other than the US will be running the world by the end of this century.
I stole -- no, no, "paid tribute to" -- this piece in my blog.
But along with India and China, you could also mention Canada -- give us your poor biologists, geologists, physicists, and even your biocheminist masses, yearning to breathe free. . .
` Only heard this news today! (Yes I DO live under a rock.) I hope our next leader isn't this scary:
` What we need is a president that doesn't judge from personal intuition or changes the subject when facts become inconvenient.
` Such a president would most likely be ABLE TO understand the difference between science and pseudoscience.
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His point is valid. I love the "opinion" one-liner: we should all remember that scientific processes do not care about the Average American's opinion. It's just not relevant. Nothing about your feelings can change reality and that's a good thing.
I got here through Marn, and I'm glad she posted the link to this. If you don't mind, I'm going over to my journal to post a link to you too.
While I've always been willing to homeschool my children if it was the best thing for them, I always imagined that it would be a situation where they had a real talent for an art or sport or something, and they needed a flexible schedule to work with their goals. Fine, fine. I support that. I never realized that I might have to homeschool them in order to make sure that they get what I'd consider to be a basic education in math, literature, and SCIENCE. I'm all for people having their own opinions, regardless of if I agree with them, and I do think that school is part of where children learn to form their own opinions, but unless we're talking about attemting to prove theorums, opinions should not be taught as part of science.
Or did I miss something? Are the proponents of ID setting up labratory conditions and pursuing the proof of their ideas with scientific testing? 'Cause that would be fun to watch.
In reference to joishiki said:
The so-called religious organizations which now lead the war against the teaching of evolution are nothing more . . .
I'm afraid the evidence for ID would only be "sexed up."
For a real scare, read http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/38/8664>this.
I know, it's *that* Bill Moyers. But it bears reading.
Most people believe that:
2 + 2 = 4
but not everyone...
So it seems only fair that...
Anonymous--
My mistake, I apologize.
Now that I have a better sense of whom I'm dealing with, I'd like to address some of your other points in your previous comment.
My ghost/cat parable isn't the "straw man" argument you say it is. Modern theologians are far more guilty of over-complication than I am here of over-simplification. The blunt truth is that we have the Bible on record as providing or implying anthropomorphic supernatural explanations for all sorts of natural phenomena. In that regard, it shares the basic logic of every other religion that we now prefer to recognize as mythology.
The "methodological materialism" of science generally amounts to nothing more than investigating natural phenomena for which religion has already supplied a supernatural explanation. Such rigorous investigation invariably reveals impersonal natural causes rather than anthropomorphic supernatural ones. Just think--and I mean really try to wrap your head around--how many natural phenomena were once explained supernaturally but are now understood in thoroughly naturalistic terms, thanks to science. Even spiritual experience--the last, most subjective, and therefore supposedly inviolable refuge of supernatural explanation--increasingly admits of strictly naturalistic explanation (see Massimo Pigliucci's essay "Neurotheology" at Rationally Speaking).
That track record is a giant arrow that points in only one direction, and in light of it, you're certainly correct that "it takes an effort to hold onto the methodology [of naturalism] without embracing the ideology [i.e. the metaphysical conclusion that we live in a purely natural cosmos]." Why anyone would care to make that effort would be a mystery, but modern psychology has suggested some persuasive answers to that question.
Theology's response is retreat and revision disguised as increasing sophistication and "spiritual evolution." Despite the fact that religion stands revealed on so many fronts (not only scientific) as deeply, systematically untenable, rather than give it up as an artifact, a mythology, theologians try to keep it alive in essentially the same way Ptolemaic astronomers tried to keep their increasingly problematic system alive.
Excellent post.
Great post.
One comment, though.
Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact. Natural selection is a theory.
As S.J. Gould once pointed out, it's important to make this distinction because theories and facts are NOT, as some assume, different points on some spectrum of certainty. They are entirely different things. Facts are data; theories are explanations of those data. That evolution has occurred, does occur, is occurring, is settled beyond a doubt, for scientists and for most of the world's population. How it occurred is theoretical, but a modified form of natural selection has been leading the race since the 1930's, when it made its comeback. Nothing has challenged it because it meets all the many, many criteria of a scientific theory admirably.
ID does knowledge meet any of the criteria for a scientific theory (aside from meeting the Occam's Razor test of being simple).
Evolution is not a theory and we need to stop calling it that. Natural selection is a theory and we need to say, yes it is but ID is not.
Curt -
From anonymous interlocutor.
The Bible is not intended as a physics manual and has never been perceived as such by the majority of Jewish commentators (I'm not qualified to speak of Christian commentators). It deals with the 'ought' and not the 'is' and its physics were rendered invalid before the modern era. The kinds of questions which trouble religious belief today are not entirely new. In different form, but equally pressing, they moved the medieval Muslim, Jewish and Christian philosophers to attempt their syntheses of science and revelation and even to begin the erection of a wall between the two realms. The separation of the 'is' and 'ought' is not a new theological dodge, a contemporary shortcut around the hard questions. It has a lineage.
You may still of course cast doubt on the Bible's validity. I don't think its obsolete science, given in the only terms available at the time, invalidates the moral demands it makes, given in terms that are timeless. You may still, if you are a consistent and rigorous neo-Darwinist, question the very notion of behavioral freedom on which these demands are predicated. You may claim that my belief (leavened with doubt as it is) only shows that I'm in thrall to some especially pernicious meme. I could likewise claim your outlook, or Dawkins', as meme-driven, with no traction of its own.
I don't attempt to convince you of my point of view. I don't believe I can by means of an argument. I simply don't think your characterization of 'sophisticated' religious thought comes close to doing it justice.
You know, gravity's really just a THEORY too.
Now, where was that open window again?....
What annoys me is that it's been quite a while since St. Augustine wrote that if your interpretatoin of the Bible conflicts with our best knowledge as to how the world works, then it's your interpretation that's wrong. Just because the modern fundies can trace their religious lineage to Martin Luther, who rebeled against the corruption of the Catholic Church, doesn't have to mean they should reject everything intelligent anyone involved with the Church ever said. After all, the Inquisition was a Catholic thing too, and they seem to be entirely happy bringing that back.... OK, sorry got a little carried away there. But though I'm not a Christian at all, I don't see that being one has to mean denying evidence.
Science, by definition, has no intent. Religion, by definition, does. They cannot be compared because they do not overlap. You cannot put them side to side.
Science is the study of how things work. To get good science one needs to be impartial so as to understand the results most fully. Science requires the removal of as much bias as possible - when we allowed bias in our theorizing it has always caused trouble. When we tailor our findings to our opinions we get phrenology, race theories, germ theories and a terrible record of medical and public health decisions.
We take findings from science and assign weight and importance to them. That is not science, that is politics and ethics and philosophy. It is these classrooms we discuss why we can stomach animal testing for diseases but not for cosmetics. Why we need better gas milage for cars.
If you attempt to interject your religious beliefs (and no one isn't saying ID isn't a cover for religion, unless they know they're trying to pull one over on the populous) cannot be science because you have your answers beforehand. Not only does it make kinds incapable of becoming good scientists, it keeps them from becoming good kids.
Imagine if we just said - okay, we know tests are scary and you might not know all the answers, so what were going to do is make every test from now on an open book test. That way you don't need question anything, just find it in the book (and we all know which book these people want us to go to) and write it in the appropriate space. Sound like the formula for a world-leading nation, right?
They want nothing less than to take away our (God given) free will, as they have willingly surrendered it to others.
Look fellows, you're talking past the point, and I don't mean that The Shrub doesn't care what a few people with brain cells to chat together think because he hasn't got your vote anyway. Gloat in superior reason as we may, it doesn't matter.
The key is that community solidarity is overwhelmingly more successful than isolated individuals in supporting the raise-the-next-generation requirement for species/societies to persist. So much so that it takes a really bad downside to the cohering belief for it to have a nett negative effect. Even "children are an impediment to a career" (as evidenced in most rich societies these past few decades), normally a rapid route to extinction, is not enough so long as the society employing that belief accepts that recruitment is a satisfactory continuation.
If such a negative is not currently acting now, it doesn't matter now. Thus, explotation of oil is a massive plus now, and will remain so for a few years yet. The pollution downside is all that is operating now and is minor, as are the costs of the current political unrest in securing such supplies, so far as those who make the decisions are concerned.
So, when The Shrub blathers on about Intelligent Design, he is affirming and consolidating the belief system of his community, to their continuing benefit. Projections of bad consequences, possible or likely, some time in the murky future are irrelevant. His base is reaping the benefits of unity now, while those who are disadvantaged are diffusing their resistance amongst various ineffectual whimperings, and others perversely imagine that they also are gaining when in fact they are losing.
Yes, in the long run, bad beliefs will be weeded out but in the short run there is a lot of turbulence obscuring the small negatives of such bad beliefs. And in the long run, we're all dead.
If you really want to teach evolution, it is best to address intelligent design in a respectful way in schools. Children are going to hear about intelligent design one way or the other, and give them a little credit, they aren't going to see your dismissal of ID as the final answer. Perhaps a one way to address it is the way my high school biology teacher did; that is, teaching evolution for the entire unit, then mentioning "of course, it doesn't explain everything." He briefly described the complexities of certain organisms, and said that some people find it difficult to believe that it is all random chance. He let us drawn our own conclusions, then tested us on evolution and made sure we knew it backwards and forwards.
I also just want to mention that some people believe that the conflict is not necessarily between evolution itself and religion, but instead _Darwinian_ evolution, which is based on random genetic mutations and natural selection. You can believe that God guided evolution, but, to the best of my admittedly imperfect knowledge, not also believe in Darwinian evolution.
Faith does not mean an absense of reason; often it simply means understanding that human reasoning is fallible and incomplete.
You know what, I vote Sawyer's "Calculating God" becomes mandatory school curriculum. It can become that screwdriver that opens bloodflow to the brain and people's eyes on the subject that religion and science are not mutually exclusive. And I say this as someone who was raised atheist.
Yes. I've got something to say...
Whilt agreeing totally with KungFuMonkey and laughing my fcukin' head off in the process.... allow me to make the following observations:-
1. Bush couldn't PERSONALLY give a damn about this subject. It's FAR too deep for him to get his little brain around. He is being used, wlilingly of course, in a political poll driven game. We all know that. to my main point - which some here might not warm to.
2. Were he NOT a part of a cynical political movement to divide and rule your once great country - were he a respected, thinking, intelligent leader.. there is a case for this:-
To teach about the existence of "creationism" in an objective way. But not stopping at the creationism of the Bible, as if that flowery story were the start and end of the history of the idea.
Such teaching would place the Bible story in the context of the eastern teachings which predated it. Namely... Hindu teachings.
And a day of Brahma is millions of years. I think their "version" ages the earth 140+ trillion years.
Their philosophy also tries to grapple with the notion of involution as well as evolution is I'm not mistaken.
Darwin's teachings provide the framework for the western "materialistic" mind to arrive at the "Truth". The teachings have...holes. things that are difficult to explain within its framework. If nigh impossible.
But to present the Bible 7 day's 10,000 years ago version as the only alternative is plain... bizarre. Though IMHO is contains a kernal of truth if you add a dozen zeros to the start date and the process.
Last cryptic comment...to fully grasp the notion that perhaps we've been progressively "devolving" frmoa once perfect image of "God" (whatever that means) form... also requires taking on board the possibility that time flows simultaneously in both directions. The stuff of Quantum Physicists and mathmaticians.
The whole subject is FAR TOO COMPLEX to be legislated by a chimp.
"By way of comparison - can anyone say why it is that no other western country (that I'm aware of anyway), seems to have any signicant issue with this intrusion of extreme religious thought into public education and public life, even though all these countries have a certain percentage of fundamentalist Christians that surely could cause this problem, but apparently don't?"
I thought there was no creationist *cough* I mean, intelligent design, teaching here in England, but this place was pointed out by new scientist:
"Emmanuel, classified as a ‘beacon school,’ is one of the Labour government’s recent experiments in supporting private faith schools. The national Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) has given the school high marks, and parents are clamoring to get their students into the school—in fact, only a small percentage of students who apply are admitted. The school head, Nigel McQuoid, is an ardent Bible-believer. Some of the teachers at this non-denominational secondary school are creationists, and in the words of the Guardian, they ‘are undermining the scientific teaching of biology in favour of persuading pupils of the literal truth of the Bible.’"
However, in our case it's not state institutions promoting it, but a single privately owned school. I don't know why there are less fundamentalist 'all the bible is true' Christians in the UK, but it seems clear to me that they make up a far smaller percentage than in the US. In fact there's a far smaller proportion of church-goers in general. This difference is bound to change the level of influence on state education, though the government provides loopholes.
Why does the US have this problem and not Europe? Most countries have a National education system and a National Curriculum. In the US, education has always been local. Not until 1947 was the percentage of high school graduates above 50%.
Only since the 60s has a college degree been more or less a requirement to teach school. After WWII, the US tried to upgrade its science and math but struggled because of a lack of teachers that understood new math and science. SInce education was/is local, many schools simply did not teach evolution or require that it be taught.
The only real standards are set by college entrance requirements. Since parents want their kids admitted to the best colleges, the schools have no choice but to prepare the kids.
The other factor is that people hear disconnected but conflicting narratives. Most Americans remember the pretty picture of the ark, the rainbow and all the zoo animals. Most Americans also know about dinosaurs. However, the two narratives are separate and separately reinforced. This allows for much cognative dissonance on the narrative for how life began.
The campaign for creationism is well funded and has a lot of support at the grass roots level. The campaing to teach evolution is a requirement leveled at locally controlled public schools that may view these mandates as meddling by elites.
bakho
I was looking for the "Gravity is just a theory" comment, but I was hoping it would go a little farther....like, say, proposing the creation of a counter theory of Intelligent Anti-Gravity, complete with a cliff testing site to provide data. Then we would simply have to remind every lemming - I mean fundie - jumping that they would receive their angel wings on the way down, only to spend the next ETERNITY in a hospital gown as a sex-free 18-year old playing a mini-harp and staring at white clouds.... Wow, that's something to look forward to...
Still it would leave the planet free for the "elite" to finally move forward towards creating a heaven on Earth....
First, allow me to lay out my scientific views.
The ID website (intelligentdesignnetwork.org) explains that they are "seeking objectivity in Origins Science." Right. A press release from 1/5/01 entitled "IDnet Urges Kansas State Board to Teach Origins Science Objectively and Without Religious or Naturalistic Bias" leaves little doubt that intelligent design is a fundamentally Christian concept, similar to Creationism.
Naturalism, which is similar to materialism, is the doctrine or belief that everything we see in the universe and nature is the result of purely natural causes, i.e. chance and natural law, and that design inferences are invalid. "Naturalism is not a proven theory," adds Calvert, who is also a lawyer. "It is a philosophy which attempts to attribute the origin and diversity of life to mere chemistry and physics, while censoring evidence that might lead students to infer design as a possible cause for life. Limiting inquiry and explanation in this manner violates the rules of logic."
William Harris, Ph.D., a nutritional biochemist and IDnet Managing Director, agrees. "We believe it is fundamentally wrong to use Naturalism to limit inquiry and interpretation in the area of origins science. To exclude at the outset any hypothesis or possible explanation for the origin of life and its diversity is in conflict with the scientific method. All evidence should be considered without prior philosophical bias if science is to remain the search for the truth."
IDnet is concerned that Naturalism, in addition to its conflict with logic and the scientific method, will also lead our schools into violations of the neutrality required by the Establishment Clause of our Constitution. Further, it will have profound negative effects on our culture and our ethical and moral values.
The Wikipedia includes these two paragraphs in their article on Naturalism: W. V. Quine describes naturalism as the position that there is no higher tribunal for truth than natural science itself. There is no better method than the scientific method for judging the claims of science, and there is neither any need nor any place for a "first philosophy", such as (abstract) metaphysics or epistemology, that could stand behind and justify science or the scientific method.
Therefore philosophy should feel free to make use of the findings of scientists in its own pursuit, while also feeling free to offer criticism when those claims are ungrounded, confused, or inconsistent: philosophy becomes "continuous with" science. Naturalism is not a dogmatic belief that the modern view of science is entirely correct. Instead, it simply holds the processes of the universe have a scientific explanation, the same that modern science is striving to understand.
Evolution is technically a theory, but has been backed with enough hard scientific data over the years, including the recent addition of proof that evolution is caused by the change in the frequency of an allele within a gene pool, to be taken by most to be law. The cause of this change might be natural selection, but may also be genetic drift, or gene flow. Scientists are still working on that. Logic, which these ID people seem so keen on, forces one to take the evidence at hand, fossil records, genetic records, and synthesize them using deductive and inductive reasoning into a coherent theory--evolution. To introduce design as a possible cause is to throw faith into the mix and thus negate logic. My favorite is their use of the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause does not require neutrality. It requires a separation of church and state which Naturalism does not violate, while ID does.
According to the IDnet website, "Intelligent Design is a scientific theory that intelligent causes are responsible for the origin of the universe and of life and its diversity. It holds that design is empirically detectable in nature, and particularly in living systems. Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement that includes a scientific research program for investigating intelligent causes and that challenges naturalistic explanations of origins which currently drive science education and research."
That paragraph sounds to me like, "We believe that God created everything and the animals and humans and stuff are proof. We are now setting about to 'scientifically' prove that there is a God." You cannot prove there is a God. God is inherently based in Faith. That is the point of God, to believe in something that is unprovable. I am also worried that the ID people will set about to prove their point "scientifically" by bending already established fact to their needs. This goes against everything the scientific method stands for. The scientific method requires that results not be bent to meet the expectations of the hypothesis, but rather use the results to fine tune the hypothesis good or bad. I have a feeling that no matter what the results, ID "scientists" will continue to search for "proof" of their "theory."
Having said all this and pushed for science, I have to say that I am an incredibly religious and spiritual person, too. For those who cannotunderstand how religion and evolution mix... I believe that the Bible is part history, part allegory, part fable. The seven days story of Creation was created to explain to peasants complex nuclear physics that we in the current age are only beginning to understand. Evolution, the Big Bang, etc., do not mean that God does not exist, nor does the existance of God preclude evolution or the Big Bang. They can co-exist. I personally believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth, but did it in the way that modern science explains it, not in the way the Bible does.
I have to admit, however, that after reading the explanation of intelligent design I had to agree with its basic idea. I do believe that there is an intelligent design that drives the world. As a biology major I have held a human brain in my hands and could only think that God must have played a part because something so complex and so amazing could only be the work of God. This does not mean that I do not subscribe to the theories of evolution or natural selection, genetic drift, or gene flow. I do. Wholeheartedly. God may just take it that extra 0.00000001% that turns an ape into a human, or an atom into a universe.
Science and faith do not have to compete, they can peacefully co-exist. I just do not belive that anything but hard science should be taught in our public schools. Leave the faith lessons to the parents. If they want their children to learn about Creation or intellient design (I just can't force myself to capitalize it), then they can enroll them in a parochial school. By allowing ID to be added to public school curricula we have sent ourselves back in time to before the Scopes trial. I'm so proud of our country.
Our forefathers would be disappointed in America if they saw prayer in public school, the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, and intelligent design being taught to our children. Basically, our political situation in America today amounts to a state supported religion. What was the point of "separation of church and state" if not to safeguard from exactly this type of thing? What almost scares me more is having a President who feels he can overrule the Constitution at a whim.
I'm moving to Canada.
This has been said in other times and places, but it is clear that to be fair -- which is after all, all these so-called i.d. ppl want, right? -- all Sunday Schools should be forced to teach evolution, and let the kids decide. That's all they want, equal time, right? Plays both ways. I'd take that deal -- what do you want to bet they wouldn't?
deja vu! I was a kid in a Texas parsonage in the 50's. The whole family, but especially Dad, labored under a cloud, a social fart: namely, my older brother was becoming a well-known anthropologist and, worse yet, contributing new ideas to our knowledge of evolutionary processes. In the 60's I studied social structure and demographics of a Maya village in Guatemala. The very first day I was summoned to the Catholic rectory to be debriefed as to whether I was there to espouse Darwin heresy. Since I wasn't, I "dissasembled" enuf to reassure the priest. Then, for 40 years I was free simply to turn my conversation to someone else if God, the Creator arose as a topic--say, in a visit to Texas. But now: The enthronement of ignorance, both loud and subtle versions. As several bloggers have said, it sets hard science as just one choice on the steamtable, where other choices have been tricked-out in their presentation. What a retreat! What a shot-in-the-foot defeat!
Soon we can teach creationism as taught in the texts of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Blessed Be His Noodly Appendage.
Excellent post, and discussions, btw.
The problem is that there IS NO DEBATE. There is only a debate from the perspective of the creationists. The evolutionists aren't debating at all because they are so far beyond the whole science versus superstition thing. If we're gonna allow ID be taught in schools so that kids will have "both sides of the debate," we may as well also teach kids the theory that babies come from storks so that they will ALSO have both sid