Defending Darwin
orionmagazine.org
orionmagazine.org
But some of the foreign postdocs of course are religious. There was one guy (catholic) who believed the Earth was created 4000 years ago by God including all the evidence for evolution as a kind of mind trick on scientists. I find it hard to understand how you can hold such weird beliefs and also be a scientist, but it isn't very rare.
But some people will believe in anything they want, and are completely sure that they have institutional support. (And the fact that even the institution is questionable won't even cross their minds.)
That happens for every kind of institution, not only religious. Violent sports fans are a very explicit example.
"When I again pointed out that John Paul accepted evolution—and he certainly wasn’t an atheist—the student countered that Catholics aren’t Christians. Several simply let me know they will be praying for me and praying hard. One student explained that as a devout Catholic he had no choice but to reject evolution. He accused me of fabricating the pope’s statements. When I explained that he could go to the Vatican website for verification or call the Vatican to talk to a scientist, he insisted that there was no such information available from the Vatican. He then pointed his finger at me and said the only way he would believe me is if Pope John Paul II came to my class to confirm these quotes face-to-face. The student then stomped out, again slamming the auditorium door behind him."
From the Pope's mouth (2007):
http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2007/j...
"Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God. This antithesis is absurd because (...) there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such."
That people deny reality when there is such an overwhelming mountain of evidence that the Earth is over 4000 years old (as one example) is deeply depressing.
See for example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/10/28...
Actually, doctrinally, Catholics are free to believe in believe in evolution or not. The Church accepts scientific evidence of evolution, but does not make it a policy issue, so to speak. Contrast this with, say, the Church's stance on belief in the literal historicity of Adam and Eve (and a whole slew of specific claims besides), which is core Catholic doctrine and a non-negotiable belief.
You don't need to take my word for it, the Vatican has the Catechism full-text online. You can read the Catechesis on Creation for yourself, where you'll see:
"The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers..."
Which hardly seems to be taking as forceful a stand as you imply.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2...
>Catholics can't fundamentally choose what to believe in
Seriously? Have you met any adherent of any organised religion ever? :-)
Humans are conflicted creatures. The bias and irrational thought we see in religious people are weaknesses inherent in all of us.
Bias by it's nature and definition means that we will never be able to understand our own prejudices by observing ourselves. We can only seek to understand it by observing it in other people.
Take Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for instance, in which patients seek to recognize their own biased ways of thinking in order to lessen their biases and dissociate these thoughts from emotion and action.
The same principles applies to reflecting upon one's thought processes (metacognition) in general, though perhaps to a lesser degree.
While becoming aware of one's biases by oneself is difficult, one can understand ones own prejudices - certainly those that we know that more or less everybody has a propensity towards.
In my opinion, these biases and irrational thoughts are not weaknesses inherent in all of us. I think they are rather something we all have potential for, but which is expressed differently in each of us.
What makes this so bogus is the enormous weight of peer-reviewed primary research and scientific evidence of evolutionary basis for life.
Thankfully, in the UK, a much smaller minority hold these views. I heard a Mitt Romney speech in London once and he was asked about his view on creationism vs evolution - he couldn't answer, but if we were to support evolution he just lost any chances of future election. If a UK prime minister espoused creationism, the reverse would be true.
"What is the difference between a scientific theory and a hypothesis?"
"What happens if we only ever use one kind of antibiotic in the world?"
"Does evolution imply that a monkey gave birth to a human baby?"
Only after students have answered those questions clearly and correctly do we enter into conversations about what it means to "believe in evolution". Once we have clear answers to these questions, students no longer feel the need to use that phrase.
UFOs, Illuminati conspiracies, Rumpology...
But when it come to not believing in scientific theories that are obviously standing the hard tests of the scientific method and that are making correct, testable predictions, well, it does become somewhat frightening at that point.
Perhaps it's just social norming at work, and people find it easier to say whatever they need to continue to fit into their social cliques. TBH, I hope this is mostly the case, because at least then there is some method to the madness.
Also, it's hard to not throw Hayek's Scientism[2] into the mix again here...for too long, perhaps, Researchers have attempted to apply scientific principles to area's of study that simply are not suited for such attempts, thus creating a generation of layperson's who are having much easier time dismissing anything that does not fit comfortably into their intuition due to often-flawed research.
In any case, I am finding this same disheartening truth when I talk to people about some of the few solid findings that neuroscience has made about our decision-making processes, so I believe I have some direct, albeit minor, understanding of the issue.
[1] http://listverse.com/2013/06/12/10-bizarre-things-people-bel...
[2] http://cafehayek.com/2011/12/hayek-on-scientistic-hubris.htm...
It so happens that clearly not understanding science becomes a prerequisite for not accepting evolution, and understanding science implicitly makes evolution an obvious fact.
Science isn't at odds with religion, science is at odds with ignorance. If all facts lead to a deities existence, then science would have a theory of this deities involvement. We would then try to understand how the deity created the universe and us. Science is simply the utilization of fact to explain the 'how'.
In the vernacular, fact also has another meaning: true. Not conclusively true, not noisily true, but Simply True. Unrevisable. Unimprovable. Just Truth. And that's the game you've decided to be a part of. "It is a FACT that I am standing here right now." Some groups are well aware of this confounding of terms and they deceitfully abuse it.
But facts are data points. They are the things which you combine to formulate a theory. If all you have are facts, then all you have is a bundle of disconnected trivia. Theory is true power over facts, but in the vernacular, theory means opinion. Theory is weak. Theory is revisable. Theory is improvable. How do you know your theory won't change tomorrow? But Fact is Truth. It won't change tomorrow, or ever.
But in science, theory is power. Theory is sexiness. Theory is freedom from a huge bundle of disconnected, incoherent facts. "You have no theory, all you have are facts!", is a damning statement.
Historians have a lot of difficulty producing a decent theory of history. They have tons of facts, but where's the general theory of civil war? Everything in history is retrospective hyper-domain-specific explanation. So some people appreciate the difficulty of theory.
Maybe if people don't play these word games, then they also lose. But I don't currently believe that. I think the other side that plays word games is dishonest, and that those who join with me on this opinion should resist such immoral PR tactics. These are people who pervert the good instruments of societal transaction and improvement, because winning is everything to them. Whatever the damage to public relationship to science, whatever the cost to language, whatever -- let the kids of the future clean it up after we've won the "war".
I now write software professionally, and if I didn't do this, then the number of misunderstandings would be far far greater. I needn't make the product owners speak using tech terms for them to understand the concepts. Getting too technical confuses someone who has no interest in understanding the underlaying technology.
Also, to a physicist, the statement "I am here" is not a fact. You were there, but between the earths rotation on it's axis, the orbit of the earth around the sun, the movement of the solar system within the galaxy, and spacial expansion puts you in a completely different place from when you started the statement compared to where you ended it.
In Chemistry, we're all taught the Bohr model. It's not what's actually happening, but it's a good model to get a rudimentary understanding of orbits.
When you talk about approximate geometry, physics, or chemistry, that is very different from the deceitful language games being played by groups in American society. And when we say that evolution is fact, that's not even playing the game right, and it is said in bad faith.
When someone can equate God with Fact and get wide agreement, or agreeably express their understanding of fact by saying, "I am here. That is fact." (arguing against this is a trap), you will lose if you say that evolution is a fact, because evolution cannot stand on the same place as God, and saying so is a cultural violation.
Furthermore, facts can never be changed or improved upon, nor reframed. When someone says that God is Fact, they mean to say that God is unquestionably true in an unchanging and objective way. If you say that evolution is fact, someone will ask how the THEORY of evolution has changed over time, and how a changing theory can be fact. They are deliberately switching back and forth between technical lingo and vernacular. If you try to elucidate with anything less elegant than how the conversation went so far, you will lose.
This game, this abuse of language, this struggle for political power and social configuration, is very far and apart from the pedagogical motives of approximate models in physics, chemistry, or geometry. It is done in bad faith. It is done as a game. And even if you were fully cynical and believed that gaming is the right way forward, even then this is the wrong move. The stronger play would be to instill this contrary framing of language at an early age through an authoritative institution -- schools.
There are two possible common scenarios of people who dismiss evolution after reasonable education:
If a people chose to dismiss evolution simply because the Bible (or some influential people) said so, it wont make much difference to convince him evolution, because even if you succeeded, it's just because you said so, not based on his own independent thinking.
If a people choose to believe in God based on his own independent thinking, he probably already chose to not using the scientific way of thinking on this matter. And you have to respect that the scientific way isn't perfect itself (it's mostly based on induction not undeniable logic).
The second scenario is far rarer than the first one. But with them, it's more productive to have a more philosophical discussion than a scientific one.
1. The conflict between religion and science is at a much deeper level than "evolution" or any other specific question about facts. Religion is based on belief in the absence of (or even in conflict with) evidence. Science is (or should be) based on doubt even in the presence of evidence. (Quick quiz: Did Albert Einstein waste the last half of his life opposing quantum mechanics?)
I enjoyed Stephen J. Gould's book on the conflict between religion and science, but he rather missed the actual point. ("I make it clear that one can accept evolution and maintain their religious beliefs. They are not mutually exclusive:" yes, at the risk of having to compartmentalize the activities of science and religion; but everyone does that anyway. I like to fancy myself a scientist, but my understanding of most of science is at the level of religion; I don't have enough physics to really evaluate evidence, so I'm just going along based on results. Likewise, I don't have the chemistry or the biology. I suspect the vast majority of any scientists or engineers are in a similar boat, although I know too many of both to expect not to be set on fire for this statement. In any case, I'm mostly going along because I like the results.)
2. "Evolution", on the student side in this article at least, is essentially irrelevant to the lives of the students. (Modulo, of course, the evolutionary medicine points; many of those are as compatible with creationism, though.) This is a course on biology for non-biologists; the facts of biology have no practical, visible effects on their lives. That might change if they go full-crazy and assert something like the immutability of species, but that isn't the mainstream of creationist thought. Whether whales descended from a strange, wolfy sort of critter is as irrelevant to non-biologically inclined students as whether whales' tails are oriented vertically or horizontally to students in Kansas. Or, whether nitrogen compounds are exciting[1].
Teaching evolution in these classes is valuable solely because it teaches an understanding of how science works, which (a) most practising scientists don't really have but which (b) is kind of important if one is going to be dealing with most policy decisions. Which one is. On the one hand, that makes this class one of the most important that the students could take, but on the other it makes this class one of the least important: I don't care if you "believe" in evolution or not if you can make reasonable, reasoned decisions. (Unless you believe the world was created 4000 years ago, all of the evidence otherwise was planted as a trick, and that the god who did so is benevolent. I'm staying away from that guy.)
[1] http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/01/09/things_i_won...
I guess I'm just confused because he uses the same word "evolution". It seems like this is the same thing as saying cells are a theory and a fact. But that doesn't even make sense as far as the word "cells" goes. Wouldn't it make more sense to say life is a fact and evolution is a reasonable way of explaining how life functions? Or something along those lines, I can't quite wrap my head around it. Perhaps someone can explain this more clearly?
He might just be using two definitions of the word "evolution" to make a point/sound more poetic. But this just comes off as more confusing to me.
Thus much of the confusion is in people not knowing the differences between laws, theories, hypotheses and conjectures. Sloppy curricula is a large factor in this, I think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
"A theory can be a body of knowledge, which may or may not be associated with particular explanatory models."
Evolution is a huge body of knowledge accumulated over a long time and also a fact -- we can actually observe it happening, just like we see the Sun rising every day.
Or to give you a less obvious example of the theory and the fact:
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps....
I you'd consider the general and the special relativity as "just theories" in the sense of those who use that phrase and who typically don't understand the meaning of the word in science, since something being a theory doesn't imply what they think it implies, you couldn't use the GPS.
Calling something a theory in science doesn't imply that the science doubts that. Of course there are the unproven theories that are wild speculations, but there are those that are effectively fully confirmed.
Darwin's theory of evolution (by natural selection) is called a theory because it's a possible model (maybe / maybe not directly observable), but that life forms "evolve" (undergo change) is an observable fact.
To me its like saying I'm both Christian and Muslim. Sure, one can decide to be whatever weird thing he/she likes, but its bizarre and does not make any sense.
Or am I mistaken?
Naturally, this requires discounting the Genesis account of creation, among other things. It also starts to border closer to deism, which is at odds with conventional Abrahamic interpretations of a heavily interventionist God.
Stephen Jay Gould dubbed this "Non-Overlapping Magisteria". As is the case with religion, it's possible to compartmentalize and select everything into a syncretic faith. Whether it is "bizarre" or "nonsensical" is of no relevance.
Compartmentalizing for this really only needs to happen if you are in the group where the Bible/whatever is word for word acurate. If you think it's a guide book and 7 days really isn't seven Earth days but some description of time passing, God "guiding" evolution still makes sense.
I always wonder how Genesis 1:26 would work without evolution and genetics?
I like that the professor in this example tries to engage his students despite the conflict with their religious beliefs. It seems like he sometimes has success with it and is realistic in his expectations...
Unfortunately, this isn't true. Evolution and certain religions may not be directly in conflict... but science and religion? The two by definition are fundamentally at odds.
Still at odds, fundamentally.
Where exactly is this 'room for God' and why is it suspiciously never anywhere anyone looks?
The belief alone that God can't be disproved, even with evidence, is a fundamentally anti-scientific point of view. Once you come to the point of science 'proving everything' but still believing in God, what are you basing that belief on? Literally nothing.
In reality the "religious" people from one specific religion are the "unbelievers" for people of other specific religion, unless the later religion actually allows different gods at once.
Abrahamic religions have the particular problem that they have that concept of "have no other gods but me" and the concept that "others" will actually suffer for not honoring that very god:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
The exact definition of an atheist, seen from the point of view of any of Abrahamic religions is: "he believes in just one less god than we" but they don't want to confront that fact.
The two by definition are fundamentally at odds.
E.g. Ptolemy, ca. 100 – ca. 178 NE:
"I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia."
You can be an idealist and have the desire to learn the laws of the nature. What you can't is to just consider some book as the switch which allows you to turn off your brain.
Unfortunately creationists don't have that attitude.