Michael Shermer |
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eSkeptic: Human cognition has a problem — anecdotal thinking comes naturally whereas scientific thinking does not. The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism illustrates this barrier. On the one side are scientists who have been unable to find any causal link between the symptoms of autism and the vaccine’s ingredients. On the other are parents who noticed that shortly after having their children vaccinated autistic symptoms appeared. Anecdotal associations are so powerful that they cause people to ignore contrary evidence. In the vaccination case the imagined culprit for autism’s cause is the preservative thimerosal, yet it breaks down into ethylmercury that is expelled from the body too quickly to have a damaging effect (plus autism continues to be diagnosed in children born after thimerosal was removed from vaccines). The story holds power despite the contrary facts. The reason for our cognitive disconnect is that the brain evolved to be cautious. We favor anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool. Our brains are `belief engines’ that seek connections. Even in the age of modern science, our faith in anecdotes can make us easy to exploit. Any medical huckster promising that A will cure B has only to advertise a handful of successful testimonials. |
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Is Christianity Good for the World? Notes from Michael Shermer, eSkeptic October 24th, 2007 1. What Are We Debating? Is Christianity Good for the World? The answer is obvious: It Depends! Religion is so complex, so all-encompassing, so sweeping and culturally enveloping that it would be absurdly simplistic to offer a simple yes or no answer, comparable to asking Is government good for the world? Religion is good when it does good, and bad when it does bad. Christianity reminds me of Winston Churchills comment about Americans: You can always count on Americans to do the right thing after theyve tried everything else. Well, you can always count on Christians to do the right thingafter they have tried everything else. 2. Which Christianity? Good for Whom? Which Christianity? (Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Mormon, Episcopalian, Pentecostal?) 33,800 different Christian denominations worldwide. Which is the right one? Good for whom? Individuals, communities, society? Protestant Christians determined to murder Catholic Christians over turf in Northern Ireland? Not good. Mormon Christians who belong to the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who believe that is acceptable to force 13-year old girls to have sex with men five times their age? Not Good. Pentecostal Christians who indoctrinate young children at Jesus camps into becoming warriors for Christ who are willing to kill for their lord? Not good. Evangelical Christians who believe so strongly in the sanctity of life that they blow up abortion clinics and kill doctors? Not good. Catholic Christians whose Priestly pedophile program of, in the words of Christopher Hitchens, No Childs Behind Left? Not good. 3. Gay Marriage & Homosexuality as a Case Study The issue of Gay marriage in particular and homosexuality in general is a case study in what is wrong with religion, especially Christianity. The overwhelming evidence from science shows that gender preference is primarily determined by our genetics and prenatal biochemistry, especially embryological hormone balance. Almost everyone is born attracted to members of the opposite sex. A tiny percentage perhaps as few as one to two percent are attracted to members of the same sex. Asking a homosexual when he or she chose to become gay is like asking a heterosexual when he or she chose to become straight. Nevertheless, on this particular issue Christianity remains mired in pre-civil rights, pre-enlightenment, even pre-scientific thinking, basing their beliefs on a single biblical passage (Leviticus 18:22: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination) that itself is tucked in between other passages that instruct parents to kill their disobedient children and to execute adulterous wives and nonvirgin brides. Thats right, the death penalty for adultery, which would immediately eliminate a good number of Christian Congressmen and Senators, preachers and televangelists. As a consequence of this embarrassing lapse of Christian charity, Christian preachers, writers, and theologians think nothing of tormenting gays by telling them that their desire to love another person of the same sex is an abomination, by telling them that they have a disease that can be cured through treatment (such as forcing gay guys to watch football games), and by telling them that promiscuity is evil but that the single best prophylactic against it marriage is legally banned from them. Christians actually believe they are being charitable by proclaiming that they hate the sin, not the sinner, which is not dissimilar to what Christians declared just before torching women for allegedly practicing witchcraft in order to save their souls, or when Christians called for pogroms against Jews for being Christ-killers. (May I point out that if Jesus had to die for our sins, that means someone had to kill him, and therefore that someone should be thanked, not persecuted and murdered.) Mark my words. Here is what is going to happen. Within a decade, maybe two or three, Christians will come around to treating gays no differently than they now treat other groups whom they previously persecuted women, Jews, blacks but not because of some new interpretation of a biblical passage, or because of a new revelation from God. These changes will come about the same way that they always do: by the oppressed minority fighting for the right to be treated equally, and by a few enlightened members of the oppressing majority supporting their cause. Then what will happen is that Christians will take credit for the civil liberation of gays, dig through the historical record and fine a few Christian bloggers or preachers who had the courage and the character to stand up for Gay rights when their fellow Christians would not, and then cite those as evidence that were it not for Christianity gays would not be equal. 4. Religion and Societal Morality In a 2005 study published in the Journal of Religion and Society, independent scholar Gregory S. Paul found an inverse correlation between religiosity (measured by belief in God, biblical literalism, and frequency of prayer and service attendance) and societal health (measured by rates of homicide, suicide, childhood mortality, life expectancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, and teen pregnancy) in 18 developed democracies. In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies, Paul found. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so. Indeed, the U.S. scores the highest in religiosity and the highest (by far) in homicides, STDs, abortions, and teen pregnancies. Conservative Christians, of course, will blame secular liberals for all these societal ills, but with over 90 percent of Americans proclaiming themselves to be Christians, and the country roughly split 50/50 between conservatives and liberals, this does not add up. 5. Religion and Individual Morality In 1934, Abraham Franzblau found a negative correlation between acceptance of religious beliefs and three different measures of honesty. As religiosity increased, honesty decreased. In 1950, Murray Ross conducted a survey among 2,000 associates of the YMCA and discovered that agnostics and atheists were more likely to express their willingness to aid the poor than those who rated themselves as deeply religious. In 1969, sociologists Travis Hirschi and Rodney Stark reported no difference in the self-reported likelihood to commit crimes between children who attended church regularly and those who did not. In 1975, Ronald Smith, Gregory Wheeler, and Edward Diener discovered that college-aged students in religious schools were no less likely to cheat on a test than their atheist and agnostic counterparts in nonreligious schools. In 1996 George Barna, a born-again Evangelical Christian, in his Index of Leading Spiritual Indicators, based on interviews with nearly 4,000 adult Americans, revealed: Born again Christians continue to have a higher likelihood of getting divorced than do non-Christians. And: Atheists are less likely to get divorced than are born-again Christians. Barna found that the current divorce rate for born-again Christians is 27 percent, while it is only 24 percent for non-Christians. In addition, the Baby Boomers that generation often criticized for sexual indulgence and moral relativism has a lower rate of divorce (34 percent) than the preceding generation (portrayed in popular culture as the idealized 1950s Ozzie and Harriet family), who hover at 37 percent. Five years later, in a 2001 survey, Barna found that 33 percent of all born again individuals who have been married have gone through a divorce, which is statistically identical to the 34 percent incidence among non-born again adults. The July/August 2007 issue of the Annals of Family Medicine published the results of a study conducted by researchers from the University of Chicago and Yale New Haven Hospital that religious doctors were no more likely (and even slightly less likely) to employ their craft among underserved patients than were physicians with no religious affiliation. Specifically, Farr Curlin, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and his colleagues surveyed 1,820 practicing physicians from all specialties: 31% of physicians who were more religious practiced medicine among the underserved, compared to 35% of atheist, agnostic, and nonreligious doctors. Religiosity was measured by religious service attendance and self-reported intrinsic religiosity questions that measured the extent to which individuals embrace their religion as the master motive that guides and gives meaning to their life. Curlin noted his own response to the data: This came as both a surprise and a disappointment. The Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist scriptures all urge physicians to care for the poor, and the great majority of religious physicians describe their practice of medicine as a calling. Yet we found that religious physicians were not more likely to report practice among the underserved than their secular colleagues. The key to understanding who helps the needy the most was spirituality, not religiosity. According to Curlin, those who identified themselves as very spiritual, whether or not they were religious, were roughly twice as likely to care for the underserved as those who described their spirituality as low. Part of this divergence between religion and spirituality can be traced to a rift between Christian denominations in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, Curlin concluded. About a century ago, he noted, many of the mainline and liberal Protestant churches began to emphasize efforts to right social injustices, while the more conservative churches tended to stress doctrinal orthodoxy. Research indicates that those who consider themselves spiritual but not so religious are more likely to be formed in the more liberal denominations. Curlin added that he is an orthodox Christian in the Protestant tradition. Conclusion Absolute morality leads logically to absolute intolerance. Once you believe that you have the absolute and final answers to moral questions, why be tolerant of those who refuse to accept your Truth? Religiously based moral systems apply this principle in spades. From the medieval Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition to the Holocaust and Bosnia, history is rife with examples of intolerance. In the name of their religion, people have lighted faggots to burn women accused of witchcraft. In the name of God, religious people have sanctioned slavery, anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, torture, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war. Not only does religion not necessarily make one more moral, it can lead to greater intolerance, racism, sexism, and the erosion of other values cherished in a free and democratic society. |
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Making the paranormal normal |
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Skeptic founder Michael Shermer on
TEDTalks Skeptic Magazine founder Michael Shermer takes us on a hilarious romp through the strange claims we humans put forth as truth - from alien encounters to Virgin Mary sightings on pizza pies, to hidden messages revealed while playing "Stairway to Heaven" backwards - and explains the evolutionary and cognitive basis for these lapses in reason. Don't miss the one-minute challenge testing your own observational skills...Shermer is the founder/publisher of Skeptic Magazine, and author of several books, including Why People Believe Weird Things (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 17:29) |
Made available with permission. Can also be downloaded here.
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War & Peace The evolution-creationism skirmishes that have periodically flared up throughout the past century embody the long historical tension between science and religion. It may surprise you, then, to learn that Charles Darwin matriculated at Cambridge University in theology, and throughout his five-year voyage around the world he was a creationist who regularly attended church services. It was only upon his return home that his loss of faith came about. Nagging doubts about the nature and existence of the deity chipped away at his faith from his studies of the natural world, particularly the cruel nature of many predator-prey relationships. "What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low & horridly cruel works of nature!" Books BY MICHAEL SHERMER October 25, 2006 New York Sun Pain and evil in the human world made Darwin doubt even more. "That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes," he wrote to a correspondent. Which is more likely, that pain and evil are the result of an all-powerful and good God, or the product of uncaring natural forces? "The presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection." The death of Darwin's beloved 10-year-old daughter Anne put an end to his faith. Yet, he hardly ever spoke or wrote about religion. In 1880, only two years from his death, Darwin explained why: "It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follow[s] from the advance of science." Was Darwin's approach to science and religion healthy and logical? To answer that question I devised a threetiered model on the relationship of science and religion. 1. CONFLICTING-WORLDS MODEL. This "warfare" model holds that science and religion are mutually exclusive ways of knowing, where one is right and the other is wrong. In this model, the findings of modern science are always a potential threat to one's faith and thus they must be carefully vetted against religious truths before acceptance; likewise, the tenets of religion are always a potential threat to science and thus they must be viewed skeptically. 2. SAME-WORLDS MODEL. More conciliatory in its nature, this position holds that science and religion are two ways of examining the same reality; as science progresses to a deeper understanding of the natural world it will reveal that many ancient religious tenets are true. 3. SEPARATE-WORLDS MODEL. On this tier science and religion are neither in conflict nor in agreement. Today it is the job of science to explain the natural world, making obsolete ancient religious sagas of origins and creation. Yet, religion thrives because it still serves a useful purpose as an institution for social cohesiveness and as a guide to finding personal meaning and spirituality. Over the past decade a plethora of books have been written on the relationship of science and religion, most of which may be classified in one of these three categories. The six books under review here are well representative of my three-tiered model (itself presented in my first book in this genre, "How We Believe," and resurrected in my latest," Why Darwin Matters"). "The God Delusion" (Houghton Mifflin, 406 pages, $27), by the Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, is firmly ensconced in the Conflicting-Worlds Model. Based on his controversial BBC documentary, "The Root of All Evil?," Mr. Dawkins presents his view of religion as a cultural virus that, like a computer virus, once downloaded into the software of society corrupts almost all programs it encounters. It isn't hard to find examples to fit this view; one has only to read the dailies coming out of the Middle East to see its nefarious effects. And Mr. Dawkins is so compelling in his narrative - both on camera in his cultured British accent, and in print through a literary style unmatched by any living science writer - that when you reach the end you are convinced that the answer to the rhetorical question posed in the documentary's title is a resounding yes! Of course, religion is so pervasive around the world and throughout history that it is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways - a force for unspeakable evil as well as unmitigated good. It is Mr. Dawkins's belief that the former outweighs the latter and that it is time for humanity to grow beyond it. "Blind Faith" (St. Martin's, 304 pages, $25.95) by Richard P. Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University, is also in the Conflicting-Worlds Model, in that the author is critical of attempts to mix religion and medicine, most notably the highly publicized studies on prayer and healing. In 1999, Mr. Sloan published a definitive critique of such studies in the prestigious British medical journal Lancet, and his book elaborates on these and the studies in this field published since. Mr. Sloan notes that many of these distant intercessory prayer studies - in which religious strangers pray for patients to be healed - failed to control for such intervening variables as age, sex, education, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, marital standing, degree of religiosity, and the fact that most religions have sanctions against such insalubrious behaviors as sexual promiscuity, alcohol and drug abuse, and smoking. When such variables are controlled for, the formerly significant results disappear. Mr. Sloan also explains that different studies show different outcomes. In one of the most highly publicized studies of cardiac patients prayed for by bornagain Christians, 29 outcome variables were measured, but on only six did the prayed-for group show improvement. In related studies, different outcome measures were significant. To be meaningful, the same measures need to be significant across studies, because if enough outcomes are measured, some will show significant correlations by chance. Not only is this bad science, Mr. Sloan says, but trying to quantify God is bad religion. For example, are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, and Shaman prayers equal? Are two 10-minute prayers equal to one 20-minute prayer? Is one priestly prayer identical to 10 parishioner prayers? If God is omniscient, does he need to be reminded that someone needs healing? In the Same-Worlds Model, both "God's Universe" (Harvard University Press, 139 pages, $16.95) by the Harvard astronomer and historian of science, Owen Gingerich, and "The Language of God" (Free Press, 294 pages, $26) by the director of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, present compelling arguments for people who already believe in God that their faith is not ungrounded. Both authors accept all of the major theories and findings of science, reject Intelligent Design as a political movement, and are not only not threatened by science but use it to bolster their faith, particularly the fine-tuned nature of the universe that allows for the evolution of complex intelligent life. Predictably, the astronomer Mr. Gingerich focuses on the universe and the geneticist Mr. Collins concentrates on the complexity of life; both are presenting modern variations on the ancient arguments from design and purpose for God's existence. In my opinion, these are the best arguments to be made in the Same-Worlds Model, and believers will not find two more stellar names in science to back them. Nevertheless, we nontheists have perfectly good counters to these arguments (which I present in detail in "Why Darwin Matters"). First, the universe is not so finely tuned for life. The vast majority of the universe is empty space, and the vast majority of what little matter there is, is completely inhospitable to life, including most planets. In its 13.7 billion year history, the fine-tuned conditions for life were nonexistent. Second, our universe is not finelytuned for us, we are finely-tuned for it, which is what the theory of evolution predicts. It is entirely possible that a completely different form of life could be based on another type of physics. Third, our universe may not be that exceptional. String theory, for example, allows for 10500 possible worlds, all with different self-consistent laws and constants. That's a 1 followed by 500 zeroes possible universes (12 zeroes is a trillion!). If true, it would be miraculous if there were not intelligent life in a number of them. Fourth, there may be an underlying principle behind all the fine-tune equations and relationships that will be forthcoming when the grand unified theory of physics is discovered. Fifth, we may live in a multiverse, in which our universe is just one of many bubble universes, all with different laws of nature. Those with physical parameters like ours are more likely to generate life. To explain the complexity of life, we turn to the properties of self-organization and emergence that arise out of complex adaptive systems. Self-organization means that the system requires only an input of energy into it in order to generate an action, which comes from within the system itself. An emergent property is one that is more than the sum of its parts: Water is a self-organized emergent property of a particular arrangement of hydrogen and oxygen molecules; consciousness is a self-organized emergent property of billions of neurons firing in patterns in the brain; language is a self-organized emergent property of thousands of words spoken in communication between language users; the economy is a self-organized emergent property of millions of people pursuing their own self-interests; life is a self-organized emergent property of prebiotic chemicals; complex life is a self-organized emergent property of simple life, where simple cells self-organize to become more complex cells; multi-cellular life is a self-organized emergent property of single-celled life; and so on up the chain of complexity. In the Separate-Worlds Model of science and religion,"The Creation"by the Harvard evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson (Norton, 175 pages, $21.95) and "The Varieties of Scientific Experience" (Penguin, 284 pages, $27.95) by the late Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan, are two of the most thoughtful and respectful books I have ever encountered in the genre. Mr. Wilson's narrative is in the form of a "letter to a Southern Baptist Pastor" (Mr. Wilson's own faith growing up in the South), and it is a passionate appeal to Christian conservatives to "conserve" nature. Mr. Wilson is willing to set aside the fundamental differences between theists and nontheists on the matter of God's existence or the divinity and resurrection of Jesus in the hope of finding common ground to solve our most pressing environmental problems - most notably global warming and species extinction. "The defense of living Nature is a universal value," he writes. "It doesn't rise from, nor does it promote, any religious or ideological dogma. Rather, it serves without discrimination the interests of all humanity." Always the big picture theoretician, Mr. Wilson realizes that if we want to save the world we need the five billion believers on the side of science, not against it. Sagan predates Mr. Wilson in his clarion call for unity of science and religion in the cause of saving the planet, and his "The Varieties of Scientific Experience" (Penguin, 288 pages, $27.95) is based on lectures written and presented at the University of Glasgow for the 1985 Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology. In her introduction to the volume, Sagan's longtime collaborator and wife Ann Druyan writes: "Carl Sagan was a scientist, but he had some qualities that I associate with the Old Testament. When he came up against a wall - the wall of jargon that mystifies science and withholds its treasures from the rest of us, for example, or the wall around our souls that keeps us from taking the revelations of science to heart - when he came up against one of those topless, old walls, he would, like some latter day Joshua, use all of his many strengths to bring it down." Ms. Druyan attended every lecture, "and more than 20 years later what remains with me was his extraordinary combination of principled, crystal clear advocacy coupled with respect and tenderness towards those who did not share his views." Those who recall the inimitable voice of Sagan, with his punched syllables and dramatic pauses, will hear it again in these chapters. "There was plenty of laughter during these lectures," Ms. Druyan recalls, "but also the kind of pin drop silence that comes when the audience and the speaker are united in the thrall of an idea." There is, arguably, no more enthralling an idea than that of God, which Sagan characteristically addressed in a rigorously logical and scientific manner. Darwin's Separate-Worlds approach to science and religion worked well for him, but it still leaves open the deeper question about whether one can logically believe in God and science. Belief in God depends on religious faith. Acceptance of science depends on empirical evidence. This is the fundamental difference between religion and science. If you attempt to reconcile religion and science on questions about nature and the universe, and if you push the science to its logical conclusion, you will end up naturalizing the deity; for any question about nature, if your answer is "God did it,"a scientist will ask: "How did God do it?, What forces did God use? What forms of matter and energy were employed in the creation process?" The end result of this inquiry can only be natural explanations for all natural phenomena. What place, then, for God? The problem with attempts at blending science and religion may be found in a single principle: A is A. Or: Reality is real. To attempt to use nature to prove the supernatural is a violation of A is A. It is an attempt to make reality unreal. A cannot also be non-A. Nature cannot also be non-nature. Naturalism cannot also be supernaturalism. Believers can have both religion and science as long as there is no attempt to make A non-A, to make reality unreal, to turn naturalism into supernaturalism. The Separate-Worlds Model is the only way to do this. Thus, the most logically coherent argument for theists is that God is outside of time and space; that is, God is beyond nature - super nature, or supernatural - and therefore cannot be explained by natural causes. This places the God question outside the realm of science. Mr. Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and the author of "Why People Believe Weird Things." His just-released book is "Why Darwin Matters." |
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The Bookshelf talks with Michael Shermer by Amos Esty eSkeptic 25 Oct 2006 Recently, Michael Shermer has been spending much of his time pointing out the flaws in creationist critiques of evolution. But Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, columnist for Scientific American and well-known champion of science, was once a creationist himself. In his new book Why Darwin Matters (Times Books), he explains why he eventually accepted evolution and tries to convince others to do the same. Shermer also examines the controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution and argues that people who hold religious beliefs can embrace the theory without compromising their faith. After all, he writes, it does not matter whether 99 percent or just 1 percent of the public accepts a scientific theory the theory stands or falls on the evidence, and there are few theories in science that are more robust than the theory of evolution. You write that you used to be an outspoken creationist yourself. How do you go from being a creationist to writing a book called Why Darwin Matters? I was a creationist not because I thought the creationist arguments were good, but just because I was a born-again evangelical and that sort of went with the package. I was in high school and college, so I hadnt really given it much thought anyway. And the notion of evolution as its presented by creationists sounds absurd. I mean, you have to be a moron to believe in evolution, at least the way they present it. When I got to graduate school [in experimental psychology] in 1976, I took a course in evolution just for fun. Bayard Brattstrom was the professor, and he was a real dynamo. The scales fell from my eyes, in a sense. I remember sitting there thinking, Oh my God, this stuff is real. This isnt at all what those creationists said it was. He presented, week after week, just tons of empirical evidence for evolution. Thats not what ultimately led me away from being religious it was for other reasons but that didnt help. It told me that there was a certain amount of dishonesty on the part of creationists, who I felt had lied to me about what they said evolution was. Ever since then Ive really been a student of the whole debate of creation and evolution. My Ph.D. is in the history of science, specializing in the history of evolutionary thought. My dissertation was on Alfred Russel Wallace and the Darwinian revolution, and Ive written papers on the creationist movement and now this book. So its been, really, a long time coming. Im well equipped to know their arguments because I used to make them. Ive debated everybody from Duane Gish, the young-Earth creationist, to Bill Dembski, the top intelligent-design guy. I know their arguments quite well, and Ive sat and chatted with them over beer and pizza about their beliefs. And, by the way, this is not some ploy, some marketing gimmick to promote their religion; they absolutely believe that evolution cannot explain certain things. Whether thats self-deception or not, I dont know, but theyre clearly not just making this stuff up to try to promote their religion. I wanted to ask you about those debates. Do they usually go well? Oh, the debates go well, because Im a fairly conciliatory person. Im friendly, and Im not out to insult or be disrespectful, so thats not an issue. I guess what irritates me is when theres a lack of acknowledgment that theyre wrong about certain specific points. The intelligent-design proponents have been around now for more than a decade, and there have been lots of articles, essays, reviews, commentaries and book-length treatments of all of their claims. But they continue to make the exact same arguments as if no one ever responded. On top of that, they whine that no one will take them seriously or respond to their claims. Theres a huge body of literature. My book is just the latest in a line of works completely debunking their very specific claims. Take the bacterial flagellum argument this thing has been completely hashed out. You can go online and download thousands of pages about bacterial flagellum. Who cares? Well, theyre hooking their whole argument on this one thing. I debated Jonathan Wells on the radio last week in Denver he has a book out, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and hes making the exact same arguments as 10 or 15 years ago. I find that really dishonest. The unwillingness to admit that theyre wrong tells us that its not science. Have you found during these public debates that youve been able to change peoples minds, or do they seem to have their minds made up one way or another before the debates begin? I would say a third are true believers who are never going to be swayed, and a third are scientists or skeptics who accept evolution and are there just to bolster their arguments. But its the middle third, the people who have heard something about the debate, who have a sense that there is something intuitively sound about intelligent design, its that vast middle ground that were after. Thats the battle for the soul, so to speak, for the people that havent made a commitment one way or another. Some scientists have been hesitant to address advocates of intelligent design, perhaps in part because they feared it would lend credibility to the movement. Why did you decide to tackle the issue head-on? Obviously its been in the news a lot, and its something I know a lot about. There were certain arguments I hadnt heard made before. For example, the broader issue of science and religion and whether they really conflict, and what scientists can say about the God question. More generally, I think my chapter on why Christians and conservatives should accept evolution is fairly original. I think the approach to take is not to say, Im asking you to give up your whole religion. If you give somebody a choice of Darwin or your entire family and social life, forget it, no ones going to give up all that for some scientific theory. So a better approach, I think, is to say, Look, you dont have to give up anything. Science is your friend. If you believe in a creator, then theres no better way to illuminate the glory of the creation than through science. Thats what science does, it illuminates the details of nature. So why not embrace it instead of denounce it? Why is it so important that people understand evolution? Its the founding principle of most of biology, its one of the half-dozen most important theories in the entire history of science, and its really one of the foundational theories of a couple of questions that we care the most about, such as Where do we come from? and Whats our place in the universe? Thats why cosmology also fascinates us it deals with those big, ultimate questions. Those two subjects, cosmology and evolution, are at the forefront of the evolution wars because they bump up against traditionally religious turf. Theologians feel like thats what they deal with, and scientists say that they can have something to say about this, too. Thats what makes people nervous. What Im trying to do in Why Darwin Matters is show that you dont have to be nervous, theres nothing to be afraid of. No one should be afraid of the truth about reality, and science is the best tool we have for illuminating the truth about reality. And so even though its always changing, and the truth is a small t, its still the best method we have. Evolution is, of course, a complex subject. How much do you think the average person needs to understand about evolution? I dont think the general public needs to know a lot. Its not, well, its not rocket science. This isnt general relativity with lots of equations. Its pretty simple stuff, really. But there are a few myths that have to be debunked. The most common one is that this is all an accident, that evolution is random. It isnt. Richard Dawkinss definition of evolution is a useful one, and I have it in the book: random mutations plus nonrandom cumulative selection. Its that nonrandom cumulative selection part thats where the action is for evolution. Random mutations are just the jumbling up of genes between sexual gametes. Thats not particularly interesting, thats just a mechanical process. But the natural selection part occurs with that cumulative selection thats where theres a certain amount of directionality to evolution. If it was random, the creationists are right, we wouldnt be here. But its not random, and no one ever said it was. Its just one of those urban legends that gets passed along by word of mouth. Related to that is the myth that we came from monkeys or great apes. We didnt come from monkeys or great apes. The great apes, monkeys and humans all came from a common ancestor millions of years ago. Its that ladder of progress concept that goes from bacteria at the bottom to us at the top, and its completely wrong. Its so wrong its not even wrong. Thats one of the things that [Stephen Jay] Gould devoted his life to explaining. Its a richly branching bush, not a ladder. I think if we can just get the general public to understand those two things it would reduce the number of questions I get in question-and-answer sessions by half. Pretty much every talk I ever give includes those two questions. You may have seen in Science in August a paper comparing Americans acceptance of evolution to that of a number of European countries and Japan. The U.S. was ahead of only Turkey in its acceptance of evolution. What does it say about our country that so many Americans reject this fundamental tenet of science? What it says is that creationism isnt science. Science is true no matter what country youre doing it in. The fact that creationism is almost strictly an American phenomenon, the fact that its so geographically isolated and directly related to a particular religious belief, that tells us right off the bat that this has nothing to do with science. Theres no scientific evidence for intelligent design or creationism. Its obviously political or religious. And the fact that theories of evolution are the same everywhere you go around the world, that tells us that it is science, just like geology or physics. You write that religion and science can coexist. But is the particular form of Christianity that is so popular in the United States mutually exclusive with evolution? Sure, if you insist that your biblical canons be read literally and you want to take the six days of creation each as a literal day, not an epoch, then obviously theres going to be a conflict. If youre reading the Bible as a science book, well, its pretty lacking in scientific rigor and accuracy. So thats going to be a problem. But most thoughtful people dont read it that way. I dont see how you could anyway. Right off the bat, in chapter one and chapter two of Genesis there are two creation stories. In chapter one, Adam and Eve are created at the same time, both out of mud; and then in chapter two theres another creation story Adam is created first and there is no Eve. He names the animals, gets lonely, talks to God, and God says, Okay, Ill provide you with a companion. Adam falls asleep, God takes his rib out and Eve comes from the rib. Everyone always says that those are two versions of the same creation story, that you cant read them literally. Fine, then why insist on taking the six days of creation as six days? Why cant that be an interpretation also? Maybe each day is a geological epoch, or something like that. Or, more likely, its a 4,000-year-old creation-myth story no different from all the other creation-myth stories around the world written at that time. As long as youre willing to take it all metaphorically or allegorically, theres no issue, or there doesnt need to be. How much of the problem, then, is the baggage that people associate with evolution, such as materialism and amorality? Is that a bigger problem? That is a bigger problem. I mean, believe me, no one cares about bacterial flagellum or whether DNA came from RNA or some pre-RNA world or some other structure we dont know about. What they want to know is if their kid, if he learns this Darwin stuff, is going to be an atheist. Its sex, drugs and rock n roll and Oh my God, were going to hell in a handbasket. Well, thats a different issue. I wrote a book about the evolution of moral sentiments, The Science of Good and Evil [Times Books, 2004]. We have a very good understanding now that were a social primate species and we have to be good to survive in a competitive environment. The fact that we have within-group amity and between-group enmity is all explained by Darwin. That is what gives us a human nature. The same human nature that conservatives already believe we have that were good and evil Darwin explains it. Thats why were very tribal and xenophobic and tend to be very in-group oriented. Finally, the whole meaning question is the wrong question. What meaning does the universe have? None. No one thinks it does. A star is just a blob of plasma. Of course it has no meaning, its just atoms doing what they do under heat and pressure. So the meaning comes from what we put into life, what we make of it. I fail to see what belief in God adds to meaning in life, other than just sort of waiting for some next life that may or may not be there. But all the more reason either way that we should make this life meaningful. So if people had a better understanding of evolution, that might be one key to depoliticizing the issue. I think so. If youre a believer, why not just say that evolution is the way God did it? No one makes a big fuss about the origins of the solar system anymore. That gap has been filled by science. No one feels threatened by it in terms of their religion. Thats all Im trying to do with evolution, to say that its the same thing as the origins of stars and planets, its all a historical, physical process. If you want to believe that thats Gods way of doing it, then thats perfectly fine with me, as long as you dont try to interfere with the teaching of science. You have an interesting discussion in your book of why people hold religious beliefs. You found in surveys that most people attribute their own beliefs to rational thought, but that they attribute other peoples faith to fear or habit or acculturation. What does that say about the nature of religious faith? It says that its very culturally bound and psychologically driven and its fraught with cognitive biases. Its not just religion, by the way politics, too, are all wrapped up in these cognitive biases. I cant prove theres no God, but you can certainly see all the evidence for the fact that religion is culture bound. There have been thousands of gods created over thousands of years. Its possible that the Judeo-Christian God is the one true god and that all the other ones are false gods made by people. But maybe theyre all made by people. It certainly looks that way. Why is it that, close to 150 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species and 80 years after the Scopes trial, were still having this discussion? I know, its hard to believe. A couple of things: One, the only place the debate is really going on is the U.S., so there is something peculiar about American public life related to religion. But also, evolution does hit home a little closer than, say, the Copernican revolution did. The Copernican revolution was about our place in the solar system. Thats interesting, but not quite as important, because its easy to rationalize it and say that as a life form were special. What Darwin said is that, well, no, we may be special on some level of complexity or consciousness or language, but were still animals. And I think that bothers some people to a certain extent. I think thats in part because theyre sold a bill of goods by believers who feel that evolution does somehow take away morals and meaning. In fact, this is counteracted by the evidence of what religion really does in terms of making a nation healthy. We just published an article in Skeptic summarizing cross-national comparisons of religiosity among the 18 other developed democracies around the world. The U.S. is far and away the most religious of all the developed democracies, and we also have the highest homicide rate, by far, and the highest rates of suicide, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. If religion is such a wonderful moderator of moral behavior, why isnt it working here, in the most religious democratic nation on Earth? Now, its possible that these things have other causes that have no relation to religion at all, but if religion is supposed to be a prophylactic, as it were, against these immoral behaviors, whats going on there? So if I were religious I would not make that argument, because the data dont look good at all. Do you think well still be having this debate in another 50 or 100 years? Probably. The details will change, but these ultimate questions will always fascinate. |
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The intellectual and spiritual quest to understand the
universe and our place in it is at the core of both science and religion.
At the beginning of the 20th century social scientists predicted that
belief in God would decrease by the end of the century because of the
secularization of society. In fact, the opposite happened. Never in history
have so many, and such a high percentage of the population, believed in God
and expressed spirituality. To find out why, science historian and social
scientist Dr. Michael Shermer has undertaken a monumental study of science,
spirituality, and the search for meaning through his numerous writings,
presented here for the first time in workshop format. |
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SHERMER-HOVIND
EVOLUTION-CREATIONISM DEBATE From: E-SKEPTIC #19 MAY 11, 2004 Then a Miracle Occurs An Obstreperous Evening with the Insouciant Kent Hovind, Young Earth Creationist and Defender of the Faith Michael Shermer At 7:00 pm on a balmy Southern California evening, April 29, 2004, I entered the Physical Sciences Lecture Hall on the campus of the University of California, Irvine, to a jammed house of over 500 people chock-a-block jammed into a 400-seat venue. I was there at the behest of one Pastor Jason, of the OMC Youth, a campus Christian organization, to debate Kent Hovind, Young Earth Creationist and Defender of the Faith, on: "Creation vs. Evolution. Creation (supernatural action) or Evolution (natural processes)--which is the better explanation?" |
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It was already 20 degrees
warmer inside the hall than out, even before the
dialogue heated up. Hovind's people were there in force, handing out
literature at both entrances: "Ph.D.s Who Are Creationists." (See the National Center for Science Education's list of "Steves" who accept evolution at http://www.natcenscied.org/.) "Did Jesus Say Anything Regarding the Age of the Universe?" (The answer given is yes, because in Mark 10:6, Jesus said: "But from the beginning of Creation, God made them male and female." You decide.) "Biblical Reasons the Days in Genesis Were 24 Hour Days." "Does Carbon Ding Prove the Earth is Millions of Years Old?" "The Flood of Noah: Ridiculous Myth or Scientifically Accurate?" And a 20-page booklet on "Weird Science" and "Creation vs. Evolution Questions and Answers." My associates Matt Cooper and David Naiditch accompanied me, staffing a small Skeptics Society book table where we countered Hovind with our magazine, books, and "How to Debate a Creationist" and "Baloney Detection" kits. (Matt sensed the deck was stacked against us when they gave us a puny three-foot table while Hovind luxuriated with a couple of eight footers--several complaints netted us near parity.) I agreed to participate in the debate at the last minute, after the originally-scheduled date was changed and the first debater could not attend. The local skeptics/free thought campus group contacted me at once, encouraging me not to participate so as not to give Hovind--and by extension all creationists--the recognition that there is a real debate between evolution and creation. This has always been the position of such prominent evolutionary biologists as Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins, and they are, of course, correct--there is no debate. That issue was settled a century ago, and evolutionary theory won hands down. They are also right to note that public debate is not how the validity of scientific theories is determined. And, in any case, debate is a questionable forum to determine scientific truth because such an adversarial system more closely models the law, as Gould noted after the Arkansas creationism trial: "Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact--which they are very good at. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's position. They are good at that. I don't think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second day of the two-week trial we had our victory party!" I had also been alerted to the fact that Hovind was under investigation by the I.R.S. for tax fraud and evasion (http://newsobserver.com/24hour/nation/story/1295249p-8422005c.html), that he believes income tax is a tool of Satan to bring down the United States, democracy is evil and contrary to God's law, and recommends the infamous anti-Semitic hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=3D205), that he received his doctorate from a diploma mill (http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/bartelt_dissertation_on_hovind_thesis.htm), and that even Ken Ham's creationist organization, Answers in Genesis, disavowed many of Hovind's wackier beliefs in a fascinating web page document entitled "Arguments We Think Creationists Should Not Use" (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp). I inquired of Pastor Jason if he was aware of these charges, which he acknowledged he was and that his organization had looked into them; nevertheless, they wanted to stage a debate that had nothing to do with Hovind's personal affairs or religious beliefs, and that was solely restricted to the scientific evidence for evolution and creation. Of course, I am aware that there is no scientific evidence in favor of creation, and that Hovind, like all creationists, can do nothing more than attack evolution in hopes that the default conclusion, obedient to the logical fallacy of the excluded middle (also known as the either-or fallacy and false dilemma fallacy), is that if evolution is wrong then creationism must be right. I entered the debate eyes wide shut to such extraneous matters. Hovind did not disappoint. I wasn't going to write an article about this debate, having already written about my debate with Duane T. Gish (in Why People Believe Weird Things) and having published a number of articles and essays debunking creationists' arguments (see our booklet How to Debate a Creationist). But internet chatter on some free thought forums on the validity of such debates, as well as the assessment by two atheists in attendance that, "All-in-all, I would say that Hovind kicked some serious ass in the debate although he used every trick in the book to do it," led me to pen a response to this and the larger issue of whether scientists have a duty to defend science when it is under attack (which, of course, we do), and what is the best strategy for marshalling such a defense. I cannot speak for all scientists, of course, but the Skeptics Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit scientific research and educational organization with a goal (among many) of promoting and defending science. As such, it is our job to stand up to anti-science attacks, of which creationism has mounted ever since Darwin. Of course, there are ways to do this without giving public recognition to creationists that there is a real debate between evolution and creation, but if such debates are to be staged anyway, unless there is a universal moratorium among scientists to eschew all such activities, I reasoned, they are going to happen so we might as well meet them with wit and aplomb. As a general rule that applies to most paranormal and supernatural claims, at the Skeptics Society we like to divide the world into three types of people: True Believers, Fence Sitters, and Skeptics. True Believers will never change their minds no matter what evidence is presented to them, and Skeptics already agree with us. The battleground is for the Fence Sitters--those who have heard something about the claim under question, wondered what the explanation for it might be, and perhaps speculated on their own or considered what other explanations have been proffered. Lacking a good explanation, the mind defaults to whatever explanation is on the table, regardless of how improbable it may be. If you don't understand the physics of heat conductivity between hot coals and dead skin, the improbable theories of positive thinking, endorphins, or Chi power for how people can walk on hot coals barefoot without getting burned, emerge as probable. Before the science of biogeography was pioneered and developed in the 19th century by Alfred Russel Wallace, the default explanation for the distribution of species around the globe was independent creation and the Noachian flood (or, among more religiously-skeptical scientists, Lamarckian evolution and land bridges between continents and islands). Once Wallace and Darwin demonstrated how natural selection changes varieties into different species when they migrate into different climes, the supernatural explanation could be abandoned in favor of a natural one. So, one reason for participating in such questionable debates is not to convert True Believers (since their positions are, by definition, non-negotiable), but to show the Fence Sitters that there is, in fact, a perfectly reasonable natural explanation for the apparently supernatural phenomenon under question. On a secondary level, we can also reinforce Skeptics with additional intellectual firepower they can use in their own debates with True Believers and Fence Sitters. On a tertiary level, we can witness to both cohorts that skeptics are thoughtful, witty, and pleasant, and sans horns, rancor, and pathos. To wit, I was handed several notes after the debate from professed Christians whose feedback lead me to conclude that at the very least they were convinced that skeptics are not Satanists. Here are two: "I am a believer of Creation. However, I wanted to tell you I respected your professionalism in your execution of what you had to say. I almost want to apologize on behalf of some Creationists present tonight." "I cannot say that I agree with you, but I would like to thank you for your professional presentation, unlike your opposition." I began my opening statement (I went first) with a question: "How many believers in God are here tonight?" I estimate 90 percent of the audience raised their hands. I then looked at my watch and said, "Oh, would you look at the time" as I began to exit stage left. That broke up the audience and put them at ease. I then began my Powerpoint presentation with a slide of a crop circle with SKEPTIC.COM carved in the middle of it, noting that in skepticism and science we are in search of natural explanations for phenomena--"Is it more likely that supernatural beings fashioned this crop circle or that natural beings created it with Photoshop?" Skepticism and science are verbs, not nouns, I said. These are activities to understand how the world works, not formalized positions one must defend regardless of evidence to the contrary. I then showed a slide of a cover of the tabloid World Weekly News featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and an alien, with the headline, ALIEN BACKS ARNOLD FOR GOVERNOR, concluding "Before we say something is out of this world, we must first make sure it is not in this world." I added, parenthetically, that this is the first alien I have ever seen with a buffed build--triceps and biceps bulging after an Arnold workout! More laughter. Then I got serious, explaining that there is no such thing as the creationist position to debate. There are, in fact, at least 10 different creationisms, as outlined in Eugenie Scott's brilliant heuristic (available at http://www.natcenscied.org/ and in SKEPTIC Vol. 10, No. 4). These include: Flat Earthers, Geocentrists, Young-Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Gap Creationism (in reference to a large temporal gap between Genesis chapter I:1 and chapter I:2, allowing an old earth), Day-Age Creationism (a "day" may be a geological epoch, allowing an old earth), Progressive Creationism (blending Special Creation with modern science), Intelligent Design Creationism (order and design in the world is proof of an intelligent designer), Evolutionary Creationism (God uses evolution to bring about the universe and life), and Theistic Evolution (nature creates bodies, God creates souls). I noted that Hovind would have to defend his creationism not just against evolution, but against all the other creationisms, including Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis, who have publicly disputed many of Hovind's arguments. Riffling through more slides I showed how many Christians, in fact, fully embrace the theory of evolution--I estimate 96 million American Christians, based on a 2001 Gallup Poll in which 37 percent of Americans (107 million people) agree with this statement: "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process." Since roughly 90 percent of Americans are Christians, this means about 96 million American Christians accept common genealogy, descent with modification, and an old earth (the figures are rough, but close enough to conclude that a hellova lot of Christians accept evolution). I then added that worldwide one billion Catholics embrace evolution, as explained by Pope John Paul II in a 1996 encyclical entitled Truth Cannot Contradict Truth (science and religion are both right): "New knowledge has led to the recognition that the theory of evolution is more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory." I concluded this portion of my opening statement by noting that even Evangelical Born-Again Christians accept evolution, quoting President Jimmy Carter, in his response to an attempt by a Georgia school superintendent to ban the word "evolution" from biology textbooks: "As a Christian, a trained engineer and scientist, and a professor at Emory University, I am embarrassed by Superintendent Kathy Cox's attempt to censor and distort the education of Georgia's students. The existing and long-standing use of the word 'evolution' in our state's textbooks has not adversely affected Georgians" belief in the omnipotence of God as creator of the universe. There can be no incompatibility between Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy. There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith." I then moved to the most important slide of my presentation: the famous Sidney Harris cartoon of two scientists at a blackboard filled with equations, with the words "THEN A MIRACLE OCCURS" in the mathematical sequence. The caption has one scientist saying to the other: "I THINK YOU NEED TO BE MORE EXPLICIT HERE IN STEP TWO." Again and again throughout the evening I drove home the point that creationists are doing nothing more than saying "then a miracle occurs." This is the "god of the gaps" argument--wherever an apparent gap exists in scientific knowledge, this is where God interjects a miracle. I also noted, quite emphatically, that neither Hovind nor any other creationist would ever present positive evidence in support of their creationist position, because no such evidence exists. They can always and only attack the theory of evolution and hope that no one notices that they have said nothing that would lead to a creationist conclusion. They offer no mechanism for creationism. (William Dembski's "explanatory filter" is an attempt to reveal positive evidence for design, as is Michael Behe's "irreducible complexity," both of which are thoroughly debunked in a number of scientific papers and books, and succinctly summarized in our How to Debate a Creationist booklet at www.skeptic.com.) Amazingly, even though I made this point at least half a dozen times throughout the evening, the two atheists in attendance who recounted my defeat on the Internet both completely missed this point: "Never did he even try to get Hovind to defend the proposition that creationism is true." And: "I can assure you that he in no way pointed out that Hovind was neglecting his responsibility to show how and why creationism is true." To the contrary, that was my primary argument and the foundation of everything I said. The remainder of my 25-minute opening statement was dedicated to showing how the various lines of evidence converge to the conclusion that evolution happened. Here I did not pretend to be able to cover the vast numbers of natural facts that support evolution; instead, I focused on consilience--the "jumping together" of facts not related to one another. For example, paleoanthropologists have presented us a fossil record of human evolution quite in accord with that developed independently by geneticists. As I noted, it's not like these scientists all meet on the weekends in some grand conspiracy. "Okay, look, there are these creationists like Hovind out there, so we've got to get our story straight. Let's agree that we'll tell everyone that humans and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor between six and seven million years ago, okay?" Interestingly, this approximates what many creationists think is actually happening in science, although Hovind's is the weirdest conspiracy theory I've ever encountered along these lines, as he elucidated it in 1996, in his "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution": "There is definitely a conspiracy, but I don't think that it is a human conspiracy. I don't believe there is a smoke filled room where a group of men get together and decide to teach evolution in all the schools. I believe that it is at a much higher level. I believe that it is a Satanic conspiracy. The reason these different people come to the same conclusion is not because they all met together; it is because they all work for the devil. He is their leader and they don't even know it." (Another note given to me after the debate from "an Evangelist Christian" Born again," reiterated this fear: "I just want to tell you that we fight against a spiritual world and Satan will do anything to blind your eyes from the truth. I just ask you to consider this as a possibility! I will be praying for you!") The moment Hovind spoke the debate was over. "I am here to win you over to Christ," he began. "And I'm here to win Michael Shermer over to Christ." With that, Hovind lost the debate. He was not there to debate evolution v. creation, or natural v. supernatural explanations. He was there to witness for the Lord (what we used to call "Amway with Bibles" when I was an Evangelical Christian at Pepperdine University). Everything he said from there on was superfluous: Dogs come only from dogs. Variations do not lead to new species. Design implies a designer. There is an afterlife. The Bible is literally true in everything it says. Humans used to live 900 years. There is no right and wrong without God. Noah's flood explains geological formations and species distribution. Dinosaurs and humans lived simultaneously. Dinosaurs on the Ark were very young and small. Dinosaurs died in the flood. Radiometric dating is unreliable. Jesus said the universe is young. The Bible explains dinosaurs ("behemoth," "leviathan"). The theory of evolution is a religion that leads to communism, abortion, and atheism. Evolutionists are liars. Scientists are arrogant (they call themselves "Brights"!). Creationists are not allowed to publish in scientific journals. Creationism is censored from public schools. Microevolution may be true, but macroevolution, organic evolution, stellar evolution, chemical evolution, and cosmic evolution are all lies perpetrated by the lying liars who worship at the faux religion of evolution. And, of course, Jesus died for our sins. I began my 10-minute rebuttal by noting that Hovind is the only guy I know who can deliver a two-hour lecture in 25 minutes (he is the fastest talker I have ever met, with a voice like Ross Perot and a finish to each sentence that bespoke "so there!"). This elicited audience amusement. I again emphasized that Hovind had said nothing in support of the creationist position, that he only attacked the theory of evolution in hopes that the audience would then accept creationism by default, and with regard to his divine explanations for the origin of species, I reiterated "I think you need to be more explicit here in step two." I explained that creationists do not publish in scientific journals because they do not do science; and that creationism is not taught in public school science courses because there is nothing to teach--"God did it" makes for a short semester. Because Hovind had said he was pro-science, I emphasized that if Young Earth Creationists like him are right, then all of science goes out the window, not just evolutionary biology. If the earth is only 6,000 years old, then most of cosmology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, geology, paleontology, archaeology, genetics, etc. are wrong. (Hovind gave several commercial plugs for his Dinosaur Adventure Land theme park that teaches children biblical-based science. For example, you can build your own Grand Canyon out of sand to see how quickly it can be done. You can participate in Jumpasaurus, a trampoline game where you toss a ball through a hoop and learn how you can do two things at once for Jesus. And your kids won't want to miss out on the Nerve-Wracking Ball, where a bowling ball hangs from a tree limb and the child releases it to swing out and back just short of hitting him--he wins the game if he doesn't flinch, thereby demonstrating his faith in God's laws.) I noted that the fakes and mistakes of science, trotted out by Hovind and other creationists, were all discovered, publicly revealed, and corrected by scientists, not creationists, and that the self-correcting machinery of science is what makes it so successful. I punctuated this point by noting the parallels between evolution deniers and Holocaust deniers, the latter of whom accuse Holocaust historians and survivors of lies and deceit in the same manner as the creationists accuse scientists, and that the strategy is no more effective and no less malevolent when employed by creationists. Finally, I suggested a number of tests of evolutionary theory: if Hovind could produce just one example of a trilobite embedded in a fossil bed containing hominids, I would concede that the theory of evolution is in trouble. No such disconfirmatory evidence exists, and creationists know it, which is why they always dodge this challenge. During my rebuttal Hovind was furiously scanning through his hundreds of Powerpoint slides, preparing something for every point I made, most of them irrelevant and orchestrated to elicit derision and laughter. Even during the Q & A, Hovind was so facile at this process that by the time the moderator finished reading the question, he had a slide ready to go! After the debate I was surrounded by a mob of Bible-totting students, most of whom were exceptionally polite, friendly, and desirous to know "why did you give up your faith?" The question is genuinely asked out of curiosity, but there is often a substrate inquiry implied in the voice and revealed in the eyes: "this couldn't happen to me, could it?" When I answer in the affirmative that, indeed, it could happen to anyone who is intellectually honest in their search for answers to life's most ponderous questions, I am sometimes accused of a false faith ab initio: "You were never really a Christian." How convenient, and cognitively bullet-proof. But tell that to my annoyed siblings and non-Christian friends, who tolerated my nonstop evangelizing for seven years. The sentiments were quite real. Who won the debate? Intellectually, I did, with Hovind once again conceding defeat on the last question of the evening: "What is the best evidence for the creation?" He answered: "The impossibility of the contrary" (evolution). In that simple statement, Hovind confessed the scientific sin of all creationists: Disproving evolution does not prove the creationist contrary. "And then a miracle happens" is not science. To Hovind and all creationists I say: I think you need to be more explicit here in step two. If you were there and assessed the outcome from audience enthusiasm for either Hovind or me, however, then a different result might have been assessed, one that was, on one level, foreordained. With nine out of ten people in attendance for the sole purpose of rooting their team to victory, I stood about as much chance of winning them over as the Los Angeles Lakers would in convincing the fans of their bitter rivals, the Sacramento Kings, that they are the better basketball team, regardless of the score. The home-court advantage is a potent force in intellectual venues no less than athletic ones. The problem is that this is not an intellectual exercise, it is an emotional drama. For scientists, the dramatis personae are evolutionists v. creationists, the former of whom have an impregnable fortress of evidence that converges to an unmistakable conclusion; for creationists, however, the evidence is irrelevant. This is a spiritual war, whose combatants are theists v. atheists, spiritualists v. secularists, Christians v. Satanists, godfearing capitalists v. godless communists, good v. evil. With stakes this high, and an audience so stacked, what chance does any scientist have in such a venue? Thus, I now believe it is a mistake for scientists to participate in such debates and I will not do another. Unless there is a subject that is truly debatable (evolution v. creation is not), with a format that is fair, in a forum that is balanced, it only serves to belittle both the magisterium of science and the magisterium of religion. --- If this message was forwarded from a friend and you'd like to join the distribution list (it's FREE), e-mail join-skeptics@lyris.net |
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FREEMAN DYSON, MIRACLES, AND BELIEF IN THE PARANORMAL From: E-SKEPTIC #17 MAY 4, 2004
In the last issue of the New York Review
of Books, Freeman Dyson reviewed a book entitled
simply "Debunked!" by Georges Charpak and Henri Broch (Johns
Hopkins University, 136 pages, $25), in which he ends by saying he
concludes that despite over a century of failed
experiments and lack of empirical evidence, there
are valid reasons to believe in the paranormal. This, despite his
cogent summary of Littlewood's Law of
Miracles--defined as: "In the course of any normal
person's life, miracles happen at a rate of roughly one per month." Dyson
explains: |
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BALONEY DETECTION - PART 1 (November 2001)
SCIENCE, SEMI-SCIENCE AND
NONSENSE |
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