This doesn't seem like an issue that it makes rational sense to get up in arms about. It seems emotion-driven to me, ironically.
First, can we agree that creationism is a religious doctrine, and thus it's OK to frame this roughly as a debate over the role of religion in science? Because, within that frame, Greta Christina has already made a more articulate argument against religion than I could [1]. The short of her argument is that because religion requires belief in improvable things, that makes it "uniquely armored against criticism, questioning, and self- correction".
And what are some of the most basic principles of science? Criticism, questioning, and self-correction.
If the man on the street were to believe, say, that relativity was wrong, that the world was flat, and that it was actually supported on the back of a giant tortoise, what would that imply about their ability to reason on other topics? Is it wrong to conclude that, for example, they would believe similar fairy tales in fields like economics, politics, social justice, and environmentalism?
The one thing that all of those fields have in common, which makes them more vulnerable to religious principles than other fields of science, is that their support is controlled almost entirely by a democratic population.
So, if you have a large population which believes in creationism -- and therefore can easily ignore all of the overwhelming evidence for evolution in a field of concrete scientific study -- then you likely also will have a large population which believes that the country should close its borders and wage wars against people of other faiths.
The default response to such policies is to try to overwhelm it with facts. You say, "these economic policies haven't worked in X, Y, or Z countries in time periods A, B, or C" ... but the problem is that you're dealing with people who place no stock in things like facts.
(If you're jumping to argue that I'm wrong to draw this correlation, you should be prepared to handle the example of Romney and one of the most fact-challenged campaigns in the history of U.S. politics.)
I think there are lots of other good arguments too, like the fact that it's hard to attract the world's top scientific and engineering talent to a country full of crazy people, which means that you can probably kiss your industrial leadership goodbye. But, honestly, that's not my argument.
For me, widespread belief in creationism is bad for society because it's a gateway belief system to lots of other really bad things.
(Aside: it looks like I get to take up the mantle of Science Evangelist this evening on HN; how much the poorer HN is for it.)
[1]: http://www.alternet.org/print/story/143912/the_top_one_reaso... -- by the way, I am not at all a militant atheist. In fact, I don't even describe myself as an atheist any more due to the current religious-like fervor of New Atheism. I have no problem with people who hold religious beliefs. However, she makes a compelling point that is appropriate as a reference here.
It is entirely a signaling/tribalism question. For example, I get asked whether I'm a creationist on a fairly regular basis by people who a) are aware that I'm religious and b) want to figure out whether that means I should be on the Enemies List. I'm not creationist, so I get marked down as Whee You're A Fellow Scientist (TM). It is not obvious to me that my views on, e.g., the Resurrection would merit that conclusion, but that is not the issue the two tribes picked to wage ultimately meaningless squabbles over.
(Ironically, actual creationists have been pretty tolerant of me not being creationist. My guess is this is because I do not go out of my way to soulcrush them while screaming "I am a threat to your entire way of life.")
It discourages scientific criticism of ideas. When you are taught a scientific fact or theory, you are always welcomed to, and often encouraged to question it. "Why is acceleration 9.81m/s^2? How do I know that it is true as of right now? If I carry out my own experiment, will I see this?" When you listen to the "word of god", this is no longer the case. You know it's right because someone, thousands of years ago, apparently said it is.
Yes, it can waste tax dollars - but we can always make more dollars. An innovative generation that can carry on mankind's survival? That's a little more important.
Why didn't that belief stop them from advancing science?
Why would it now do so?
Unless you count prayer as an attempt to further an understanding of the world through Creationism, I'd say my post was right on the money.
Science is moving forward, creationism is not. Regardless of which is right or which is more justifiable, it's not even debatable, which one promotes the pursuit of knowledge.
Can a creationist benefit scientific knowledge? Will a person benefit scientific knowledge more by choosing creationism over evolution? I doubt it, at least in a general case.
Then based on that reasoning, (and this is the nuanced part), you may find your self opposed to things which are based on scientific investigation and a risk to the community. The most popular example is vaccination risks and benefits.
One of the problems is that people are told that to believe in science means you cannot believe in God, and they have a strong belief in God so of the two they toss science rather than God out of their life. Its a poor choice.
EDIT: I, like patio11 apparently, believe in both God and science. So its possible :-).
Rationally speaking, if you're very vexed about vaccinations, you should ask whether someone is in favor of vaccinations, rather than attempting to guess their opinion on vaccinations by asking something orthogonal. If someone is opposed to vaccinations, it matters to you little whether that is because they're in the Tribe of UnScience (as evidenced by being biblical literalists) or if they're, e.g., against vaccinations because they're strict vegans and morally opposed to anything which might, at any point, involve an animal protein.
Typically a counter example in creationism is to question dating methods, but without any reasoning as to how the dating methods are inaccurate (beyond the inaccuracies recognized by the community). Your counter example of animal proteins based on a preference for Veganism is fine, but if I showed you that the vaccination process never came close to an animal protein would you still reject it? And in rejecting it would you reject the entire herd immunity thesis or are you limiting to rejecting a belief in the efficacy of the vaccine on your personal health?
Understanding reasoned debate is critical to understanding science and the process by which it comes to hold its beliefs. If you reject that then you both reject learning something new and the ability of science to be strengthened by your doubts.
You're using the word 'believe' in two different ways here, I hope.
'Belief' in science means 'I have seen the evidence and it convinces me' or else you don't know how science works.
'Belief' in God means 'I believe because it is absurd' or similar; that's how religion works.
I really hate how the same word can have two completely opposite meanings like that.
I'll claim that you can believe in the existence of God and not be Religious, and you can be Religious and not believe in the existence of God. The error is inferring one from the other.
You need look no further than the example that the Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Mormon Religions all have the same 'God' at their center, but very different rules for their members. Christians have Protestant/Catholic schisms, Muslims Shia/Sunni schisms, etc. So it is always risky to conclude that a belief in God conveys a particular religious alignment, it may mean a particular alignment but it may easily not mean that. There is no dependency requirement to be met.
I would disagree with this, on the grounds that the definition of religion basically pertains to your beliefs about the origins of the universe.
That being said, you can believe in god and be an atheist. (E.g. Einstein fell into the category for much of his life.)
Einstein is a popular example cited by both sides because he's become the very caricature of a scientist, and because he said things which satisfies many religious views.
I own a copy of The Quotable Einstein, and that book has several nice qualities: it is short (and easy to browse); it is organized by subject; and within each subject, the quotes are organized chronologically.
So it is easy for me to see that Einstein's views on God and religion changed throughout his life, and as he became older, he left his belief in a personal God and moved towards a belief system where "God" merely referred to the intrinsic beauty of what Einstein saw as the laws that govern the universe.
For example, in 1915: "Why do you write to me, 'God should punish the English'? I have no close connection to either one or the other. I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him." (In a letter to Edgar Meyer, a Swiss colleague. Note that here Einstein is not actually claiming a lack of belief in such a deity -- yet.)
In 1930: "I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual who survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts." (From "What I believe".)
In 1952: "My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as 'laws of nature'."
In 1953: "To assume the existence of an unperceivable being ... does not facilitate understanding the orderliness we find in the perceivable world."
In 1955: "I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."
People who say that Einstein "believed in God" should read more of what he wrote. :-)
Theism is belief in a personal god. So if you believe in god but not a personal god then you are an atheist.
You are maybe misunderstanding the definition of atheism due to the difference between theism and deism; however, atheism by definition is a rejection of both.
"Atheism is the view that there is no God. Unless otherwise noted, this article will use the term “God” to describe the divine entity that is a central tenet of the major monotheistic religious traditions–Christianity, Islam, and Judaism."
From the Wikipedia article on atheism:
"Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists."
Now from the Wikipedia article on theism:
"Theism [...] conceives of God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. As such theism describes the classical conception of God that is found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and some forms of Hinduism."
I don't have any a better source than Wikipedia, although you could check the footnotes, of which there are many. My basic claim though is that atheism doesn't just mean that you believe there is no god, it means that you believe there is no theistic god. (Hence the word.) Theism is the belief not that there is a god, but that there is a personal god.
Likewise, reading further down in the article I cited supports both your view and mine.
The very first paragraph of http://atheists.org/atheism is, "Atheism is the lack of belief in a deity, which implies that nothing exists but natural phenomena (matter), that thought is a property or function of matter, and that death irreversibly and totally terminates individual organic units. This definition means that there are no forces, phenomena, or entities which exist outside of or apart from physical nature, or which transcend nature, or are “super” natural, nor can there be. Humankind is on its own."
Reddit's atheism subreddit -- generally regarded as the largest online forum for atheists, so not exactly without repute -- has a FAQ (http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/faq#Whatisatheism) which clearly states, "There is no inherent relationship between atheism and a religion. A person can be both atheist and religious, provided that he or she believes in a religion that does not have any deities, such as some forms of Buddhism."
I anonymously posted an excerpt of our conversation to that same subreddit, at http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/10gt4a/so_apparentl.... It didn't get much attention, but the responses so far aren't really in your favor, either.
You keep finding really tiny bits of language in various articles to try to draw the conclusion that atheism only means a lack of belief in the Western ideal of a singular, personal God, even though you can't bring to bear any article which comes right out and clearly states that. But, I'm finding it difficult to find anything that clearly says your position is wrong (and some articles do kind of, sort of, almost support your position, given the sort of narrow interpretation you're using); I'm inclined to attribute that more to having never in my life read or heard atheism described the way you are trying to use it. It's a little like trying to find an article that specifically states, "God does not have a beard that is blue in color."
But, most importantly, you seem like a pretty nice guy, you've been around HN for even longer than I have, you seem otherwise perfectly reasonable, and as far as I can tell we've never fought before. Whether some guy on the internet believes that atheism includes beliefs in "impersonal deities" or not, or whether Einstein was an atheist or not, really doesn't matter to me, nor do I have the time or desire to continue arguing about it.
I am far more interested in public education continuing to teach the foundations of basic sciences, which is the only reason I got involved in this thread to begin with.
So rock on, brother.
Wikipedia could definitely be wrong, but honestly I don't think I'm interpreting it especially charitably. The article on Theism literally says, "Theism [...] conceives of God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. Theism describes the classical conception of God that is found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and some forms of Hinduism. [...] Atheism is rejection of theism in the broadest sense of theism; i.e. the rejection of belief that there is even one deity."
When I read that something just clicked in my mind that you could both believe in god and be an atheist at the same time. I dunno if that's true, but you have to admit it's a great way to mess with people.
As the term is actually used, atheism is the lack of faith in the supernatural. Look up 'dictionary atheist' on Google sometime.
A god is a specific kind of dogma, namely a supernatural being that's worshiped, and it's true that not all religions have gods. All gods are attached to religions, though, by my definitions of the terms.
> So it is always risky to conclude that a belief in God conveys a particular religious alignment
This I agree with.
It's kind of derailing my main point, though, which is: Science does not have dogma. Everything in science is open to be challenged. (Ideally. Sometimes, however, individual scientists don't live up to the ideal, and dealing with them is also part of science.)
If I understand your statement correctly, you are classifying God as a kind of dogma, which makes the notion of God a sub-concept of religion.
Fair enough, I have the opposite relationship which is that God as an independent concept of religion. My claim was that since several religions share the same God, God is an independent variable.
One of the nice features of my taxonomy is that you can throw out the entire system of dogma for a given religion and still believe in God. This seems to be the underlying mechanism in a theological conversion as well.
I recognize that if you're understanding of God is entirely dictated though the teachings of a particular religion, that it can be difficult to reason about God independently of those teachings.
Not unlike trying to reason about how a computer's CPU works if your only exposure is through a single programming language. It is hard to know which constraints or features of the CPU are part of the architecture of the CPU and which are artifacts of the expressive power of the language.
Science fits together. When you deny the existence of biological evolution, decide the earth is under 10,000 years old, and say there is no such thing as the big bang, you end up with huge gaps in the scientific explanation of the universe.
Once you do this, the world and the universe it sits in transforms from a place of logic and explainable order to one of superstition and chaos. If the earth is 10,000 years old, how is the Milky Way galaxy 100,000 light years in diameter? If there is no biological evolution, is genetic science a pseudo-science?
Creationism taught in others ways is little better.
This type of thinking destroys IQs.
It hurts because it is not just one man out there who is willfully ignorant about reality. There are a very large number of people in the US who believe that the world is only 6,000 years old, that everything is going to end any day now, that the environment isn't really worth protecting because of that, and by extension that it's not really worth doing anything meaningful. The religious people still vote, and their votes shape our policy. If their churches tell them to vote one way, and they do, the authority of the religiously fueled motivations highly define the results.
We have Senators in the Senate and Representatives in the House of Representatives; both can be called Congressmen or Congresswomen, but that term is more usually reserved for Representatives.